The Rams weren't content to run it back in 2026 with the same team, even after an NFC Championship Game appearance. They attacked the offseason by addressing what many viewed as their one true need: cornerback. Los Angeles traded its original first-round pick in the 2026 draft to the Chiefs for Trent McDuffie and then added his running mate from last four years, Jaylen Watson, in free agency.

Cornerback is widely considered the most difficult defensive position in football. They are tasked with sticking to some of the best athletes in the world (often on an island), tackling in space, reading route concepts and making plays on the ball, among other things. Their responsibilities vary based on the defensive coverage scheme, offensive play call and the ever-evolving context of each play.

Naturally, it is very difficult to quantify success at the position, but I gave it a shot.

Using an analytical formula, I calculated weighted efficiency scores on a 40-100 scale for players with 600-plus coverage snaps at the slot/cornerback position since 2022, when Watson and McDuffie entered the league. I only included players who saw the field last season, which left 119 qualified defensive backs.

Before diving in, I want to preface that this is by no means an objective measure of success. This is an analytical approach to aggregating data from Next Gen Stats into a grade that reflects – specifically – how efficient players have been on a per-target (and sometimes per-snap or per-season) basis.

That said, this grading system indicates that the Rams upgraded their cornerback room in a big way.

Results

Here's where McDuffie, Watson and some other Rams corners rank in my weighted efficiency grade metric over the past four years:

• McDuffie: 79.8 (11th)
• Darious Williams: 77.9 (17th)
• Watson: 74.7 (24th)
• Cobie Durant: 72.9 (29th)
• Quentin Lake: 71.2 (34th)
• Ahkello Witherspoon: 63.6 (75th)
• Emmanuel Forbes: 58.4 (95th)
• Derion Kendrick: 56.4 (103rd)

I also produced player grades for each year using virtually the same process and compared Watson and McDuffie to the Rams' qualified cornerbacks (100-plus snaps) from 2022-25. Here are those results:

McDuffie would have been the Rams' highest-graded cornerback by a large margin in two of the last four years, and Watson would have been one of the two highest-graded corners in three of those seasons. McDuffie's 2025 season is somewhat of an outlier, as he missed time with injuries and didn't perform up to his previous standard, but he still would have ranked second among Rams corners last year.

Here are some of the relevant average season grades:

• McDuffie ('22-25): 78.6
• Forbes ('25): 72.4
• Watson ('22-25): 72.3
• Lake ('23-25): 69.5
• Durant ('22-25): 68.7
• Williams ('24-25): 68.0
• Witherspoon ('23-25): 65.3

Williams finished 8.4 points lower during his time with the Rams compared to his total grade because his efficiency in Jacksonville from 2022-23 boosted his total score significantly.

Forbes had the best year of his career in 2025, with a season grade that's 14 points higher than his total.

Durant has been on an upward trajectory since his rookie season, which is promising, but never reached the heights that McDuffie did in 2022 or 2024.

Witherspoon registered the third-best grade on the chart in 2023, then dropped off by nearly 15 points in each year since. It's worth noting that he missed most of last season with injuries last season, which affected his score.

Watson and McDuffie have been much more consistent with their production than most of the Rams' corners in recent years, which is especially significant considering their average is spread over more seasons than most on the graph. Their dips in weighted efficiency also coincided with seasons where they missed time due to injury. Watson played just six games in 2024 and McDuffie played 13 last year. If the total scores didn't make it clear, these ones certainly illustrate that Watson and McDuffie are upgrades from the Rams' corners of the past.

And for what it's worth, the four defensive backs with the highest season averages on the graphs are the ones on the Rams' roster heading into 2026.

Grading Process

I pulled regular-season stats from Next Gen Stats for every defensive player from 2022-25 and filtered the dataset to include only snaps at outside or slot cornerback. From there, I calculated total stats for every player during that span.

I then scaled all the stats from 0-1 so that all metrics contribute proportionately before weighting them. That way, something like rating – for example – wouldn't dominate the grade because it goes all the way up to 158.3, while the percentages range from 0 to 1.

The following metrics are included in the formula, one column for their total production and one for the 2025 stats. In parentheses, I have the weight percentage placed on each stat, which I landed on through a blend of analytics and intuition.

• Yards per coverage snap (11%)
• Success rate (9%)
• Tackle efficiency (9%)
• Passer rating (9%)
• Completion percentage (9%)
• Pass defended rate (8%)
• Open target rate (8%)
• Expected Points Added (EPA) per target (8%)
• Tight window target rate (7%)
• AP All-Pros (one point for First Team, 0.5 points for Second Team) (7%)
• Yards per target (6%)
• Yards after catch per reception (5%)
• Interception rate (4%)

Each player's total stats account for 85% of the calculation, while their 2025 stats make up the remaining 15%. This makes each player's most recent season slightly more relevant to the outcome, which paints a more accurate picture of each player's current efficiency. For the year-by-year grades, I used the same formula but relied 100% on stats from each season.

From there, I scaled the raw number from 50-100 and weighted based on snaps, rewarding players who have played longer and/or more consistently during the four-year span. The weight brings the low end of the range from 50 to around 40. Players who have accumulated a lot of snaps receive a grade close to their raw efficiency score, while players with fewer snaps are brought down closer to the mean.

For example, Cooper DeJean of the Eagles has a high efficiency grade (80.3), but because he has only been in the league for two years, his weighted score is lower (71.3). The same is true for Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton, who moves around the formation. Hamilton has the 14th-best efficiency grade (84.0) but ranks 31st in weighted efficiency (72.9) because he has only taken 702 snaps in the slot or on the outside since 2022.

Lake falls victim to both of these, as he ranks 21st in efficiency grade at 81.3 but 36th in weighted (71.2). He played sparingly as a rookie in 2022 and has moved around the formation frequently since then, accumulating 762 slot/corner snaps.

As they say, the best ability is availability. Players who have proven their production over a larger sample size deserve to be rewarded for that, and those who haven't done so won't receive the same confidence. If defenders like Lake and DeJean keep up their pace, they'll be higher on this list two years from now.

Here's a visual representation of how much each stat changes a player's weighted efficiency grade on average. It is influenced heavily by the grading system, but not entirely reliant on it.

The reason All-Pro selections are so low is because very few players actually receive them, so the average player's score isn't moved much by it. The ones who are, however, get a meaningful bump. This is a way to give the clear-cut best players from each season a bit of a boost to recognize their excellence.

What does it all mean?

In short, the Rams added younger, more consistent cornerbacks that grade out higher than most of the players they've employed at the position over the past four seasons according to this weighted efficiency metric.

It's impossible to factor in how much the defensive unit as a whole helped each individual player succeed on a given play. The Chiefs utilized a much different style than the Rams have over the past few years. But as I wrote about earlier this offseason, adapting the cornerback play to fit Watson and McDuffie's strengths (press and sticky coverage) may actually be in the best interest of this Rams defense.

Fans should expect a different style and more consistent performance from the Rams' cornerbacks in 2026. And if you don't want to take it from me, take it from the data.