Trent McDuffie is one of two defensive pillars for the Kansas City Chiefs defense. He's a rare blue-chip pass defender, one of the single greatest cornerbacks in the entire National Football League. Therein lies his value for both the franchise—and other interested teams.
McDuffie is coming into his fifth season with the Chiefs, playing on a team option already exercised last year. First-round picks come with the fifth-year option, and the Chiefs were always going to use that leverage to keep him around, given his importance to the team and what Steve Spagnuolo wants to do.
The downside of the option is that it's more expensive for the Chiefs—at over $13 million in 2026—and free agency comes after that. That means that McDuffie's impact is also going to come at a much greater financial cost to the Chiefs in the coming years, which is why some fans and analysts have believed a trade might be in the works. The Chiefs, after all, came into the offseason with the NFL's worst cap situation before releasing Mike Danna and restructuring Patrick Mahomes' contract.
At this point, however, it appears that the Chiefs are intent on keeping McDuffie around and figuring out the finances to do so. Veach has already spoke glowingly of McDuffie before, with stated intentions of working out a long-term deal. He doubled down on the plan when asked about it at the 2026 NFL Combine on Tuesday.
The Chiefs general manager addressed Trent McDuffie's future with the team while speaking at the NFL Combine.
"Yeah, we’ve had a lot of dialogue with Trent last spring, last summer, and he’s first out of the gate tomorrow. Looking forward to getting with him. Obviously, Trent’s a great player, and we’ll see what we can do there. We’d certainly love to have Trent back and for the long term," said Veach.
Our own Josh Queipo recently predicted that a McDuffie extension would cost the Chiefs approximately $117M over five seasons, when factoring in the fifth-year option he's already on—or a four-year, $104M deal beyond 2026. That would place him third overall among NFL cornerbacks. That would give the Chiefs a chance to lock in McDuffie's talents for the foreseeable future while simultaneously creating another financial burden to work around down the road.
The Chiefs have been committed to locking up their best young talent in recent years, with long-term contracts doled out to linebacker Nick Bolton, center Creed Humphrey, defensive end George Karlaftis, and right guard Trey Smith in that span. When combined with the big money still owed to defensive tackle Chris Jones and quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs are set to have a top-heavy cap sheet for the next years even before re-signing McDuffie.
However, McDuffie's talents are undoubtedly appreciated in K.C. as the team's best pass defender, and his two All-Pro honors in his first four seasons prove that they're not alone in that assessment. Nothing is official yet, but it sounds as if Veach is keeping McDuffie off the trade block and in a Chiefs uniform for years to come.