The injury reason Jermod McCoy is still available amid NFL Draft slide despite 1st-round grade originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
It's not exactly the same. The Tennessee cornerback McCoy's NFL Draft slide has more to do with injury, it seems, than with anything else. But still -- he had a first-round grade, and he hasn't been picked through the first two days of the 2026 draft.
Sanders ended up going in 2025 with the 144th pick in the fifth round.
It'd still be a surprise if McCoy made it that far. But at this point, having gone past every team in the draft multiple times, maybe that's possible.
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Unless some other news comes out at some point, this seems to be about injury.
"(McCoy) clearly is a first-round talent but suffered a knee injury where he tore his ACL, underwent surgery. And obviously there are some teams that have some concerns about that knee right now," ESPN's Adam Schefter reported during the second round of the broadcast. "People think he can step in and impact a roster right away, but there are questions about his longevity in the league. For right now, we have a situation where he's still on the board, one of the elite talents in this draft in a spot that nobody thought he would be."
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McCoy was an All-American cornerback in 2024, but that injury kept him out of the entire 2025 season.
If you were looking for evidence that he was healthy, his Pro Day seemed to provide it -- he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.37 seconds.
At this point, it has turned into a potential steal, but it gets odder and odder the further down the board McCoy slides.
Someone has to take the chance at some point, you'd think. But who? And when?
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