New Raiders CB Jermod McCoy's Knee Injury, Explained
Former Tennessee Volunteers cornerback Jermod McCoy was universally evaluated as a first-round talent.
Former NFL scout and renowned draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah ranked McCoy as the 15th-best overall prospect entering the 2026 NFL Draft, noting, “McCoy has the speed, movement, and ball skills to start Day 1.”
But McCoy’s injury history caused him to slide all the way to Day 3 of the draft, where the Las Vegas Raiders selected him with the first pick of the fourth round (101st overall).
McCoy tore his ACL and missed the entire 2025 college football season, but that is not the reason NFL teams passed on him, according to Yahoo! Sports senior reporter Charles Robinson.
“It’s not the ACL tear issue,” Robinson said during Yahoo! Sports’ live draft show on Friday night. “That’s fine. But he has a bone plug, which was basically a piece of bone and cartilage used to repair a degenerative cartilage issue in that same knee, and now there is a thought process amongst doctors that this is gonna now have to be replaced again. Maybe not immediately, but at some point in the future.”
Robinson continued, “I had one team tell me that if there’s a severe slip, it’s because there are some teams that are taking the position that if this next surgery, which would likely knock him out for the entirety of a year, if this next surgery is not successful, it will effectively end his career.”
“You’re taking a piece of bone and cartilage from somewhere else in that knee that is not necessarily load-bearing, and you’re transporting it to try to fix the defect, so you can’t keep doing this over and over again.”
After the Raiders drafted him on Saturday, McCoy virtually met with the media and addressed his knee with the first question.
“I mean, I feel good, but as far as another surgery and all that, that would just be strictly based on what the team wants me to do,” McCoy said. “So whatever the team’s plan for me is is what I’ll be doing.”
McCoy conceded that it was “difficult” to have to wait until the fourth round to go off the board, but he was “prepared for whatever happened.” He sent a warning shot to the rest of the league, too: “I feel like all of it is motivation, just fueling me.”
When healthy in 2024, McCoy posted four interceptions, nine passes defensed, and 44 tackles (26 solo) across 13 games for Tennessee. ESPN draft analyst Matt Miller said his pro comp is New England Patriots shut-down corner, Christian Gonzalez. If McCoy’s knee can hold up and he plays within the same stratosphere as Gonzalez, the Raiders just got the steal of the draft.
2026 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 12:43 PM.