With the NFL Draft a little over a week away, it’s always dangerous to put too much stock in what people are saying about a prospect.
No one, but no one, can be reliably counted upon to tell the truth because everyone is trying to get the best player possible for the most favorable terms. There can be whispers about injuries and rumors about longevity concerns and even a prospect’s words can be used against him — as Myles Jack, Jaylon Smith and Christian Hackenberg are finding out. Jack and Smith are hearing reports about whether they are healthy enough to merit a draft pick; in a mediocre draft for quarterbacks, Hackenberg’s status dropped after his comments about his college coach.
Jack, a UCLA linebacker who has been considered a top-10 pick, missed most of his final season in college because of a torn anterior meniscus and last week he went to Indianapolis for further evaluation of his recovery. That set off a chain of reports and denials.
“Some around the league are worried about the long-term health of Jack’s knee,” CBS Sports’ draft analyst Dane Brugler reported last week. Les Bowen, who covers the Philadelphia Eagles for the Philadelphia Daily News, cited an unnamed source who said that Jack’s knee is a “time bomb” and revealed details of the health of his knee.
John Thornton, Jack’s agent, offered video proof, taken at a workout with the Jaguars, that his player’s leg is healthy and questioned the unnamed sources.
Teams were backing away from Smith, a linebacker at Notre Dame, after making the decision to fail him on a physical in February. Now, ESPN reports that Smith, who tore his left anterior cruciate and lateral collateral ligaments in the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl, is not expected to play in 2016 and that teams are uncertain when or if he will play again. (At least Smith, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, has a $5 million loss-of-value insurance policy.)
Although he initially told reporters at the scouting combine in February that the nerve in his knee “wasn’t stretched at all,” he later said, “I don’t know when the nerve and everything will heal, but it’s just a matter of me taking it day by day and controlling what I can control.” An examination over the weekend contributed to uncertainty for teams that are, of course, unnamed.
Sometimes, health concerns aren’t the reasons a player’s stock drops because of bad buzz stemming from the sorts of esoteric things that drive NFL coaches bananas. There’s a game within a game to be played here as Penn State’s Hackenberg found out when he was asked to explain the dropoff in his performance in the two years following his freshman season. According to MMQB’s Robert Klemko, he “shifted the blame to coach James Franklin.”
That has, according to the personnel sources, been a turnoff.
“Despite the fact that it’s probably true,” an unnamed source told MMQB, “you don’t want to hear a kid say that.”
It will all contribute to anxious week or so for the prospects and we’ll find out on April 28 how much this off-the-record chatter really meant.
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