Tennessee Titans cornerback Elijah Molden has been an outlet for advice for 2022 NFL draft prospect and Washington cornerback, Trent McDuffie, something the rookie-to-be revealed during the combine last week.
Molden and McDuffie were teammates for two years at Washington before the former was taken by the Titans in the third round of 2021 NFL draft. Now, it’s McDuffie’s turn to get drafted into the league.
Both before and after the 2021 campaign, McDuffie was reaching out to Molden to pick his brain on what things are like in the NFL, and he says Molden’s advice has been helpful, per ESPN’s Turron Davenport.
“I talk to Elijah all the time,” McDuffie said. “I felt like I’m always like a little gnat in his ear. Preseason, I was always like, ‘so, how did you learn the playbook, what did you do? How did you schedule yourself so you can get through all this playbook?’ Then after the season I was like, ‘so, truly, how was the NFL? How was it playing 17 weeks, not having a lot of breaks coming from the combine?’ And he enjoyed it and he gave me a lot of wisdom. Honestly, the biggest thing for him was his technique. He kind of switched it up in the NFL, dealing with different receivers, faster guys, and so I took a little tidbits from him. I think that’ll help me moving forward.”
Molden is coming off a successful first season in the NFL. After starting out the year on the bench, the 23-year-old played his way into the starting lineup, where he assumed the primary slot cornerback role.
From Week 3 on, Molden was arguably the best rookie cornerback in the NFL based on advanced metrics, and one of the better ones in the entire league.
McDuffie is ranked as the sixth-best cornerback in this class, per Draft Wire’s Luke Easterling. He should be a Day 2 selection.
