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There could potentially be some mistakes this year based on this issue.
Talking about medical checks on draft prospects.
Due to strict rules this year related to COVID-19 concerns, teams aren’t able to be as thorough on medical checks with all the draft prospects.
The annual scouting combine is usually the best place to give players extensive exams, to make sure there aren’t issues that might lead to them being taken off draft boards.
That amounted to usually around 330 player medical checks in late February, early March.
The combine was cancelled this year. And not only that, but you weren’t allowed to fly players into your facility for visits (30 players per team), where you could check them out further, or for the first time.
The NFL did put together a medical combine last week in Indy for 150 of the top prospects, but some good prospects didn’t show up, either for COVID-19 related issues or other reasons.
Let’s be blunt, there were clearly some guys who didn’t want to be checked medically, because they know they have medical red-flags that would scare off teams, so a few might have come up with excuses to miss the Indy Medical Combine.
So getting good medical info on a lot of prospects is a challenge this year, and this is scaring the heck out of decision-makers. It’s one thing to miss on a player who ends not playing well, but to miss on a guy because he has medical issues you couldn’t find, like a normal year, is stuff you lose sleep over.
“You’ve got incomplete medical information on these guys, and nothing scares a general manager more than not having the medical,” said former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah, now with NFL Network.
This could really hurt late round picks, the long-shots, who definitely weren’t part of the “Indy 150.”
“I think you’re going to see teams very willing to part with late picks in this draft to move up in rounds 3 and 4 and all the way up into round 2, and you’re going to see teams comfortable with trading some picks this year for picks next year just because once we get to the back half of the draft you’re literally flying blind on these kids medically,” Jeremiah said.
So the Jets having five picks in the first 87 is even more valuable than expected. Not only do they have the potential to get, let’s say, 3-5 potential starters, there is good chance most of them will be part of the “Indy 150,” and did get extensive physical exams.
How serious is this issue from a scouting standpoint? Well, generally teams avoid picking any players they didn’t get a physical on. However, they might have to ignore that cardinal rule this year related to some picks.
“You wouldn’t pick them if you didn’t have a physical on a player,” said Jeremiah, a former scout with the Ravens, Eagles and Browns. “Well, the math doesn’t work out. When you look at the number of picks and you look at the number of physicals, there’s going to be a lot of guys that get picked this year that teams are not comfortable with medically.”
Look, Douglas and the scouts can make a ton of calls to college coaches to try to find out medical stuff, but how many coaches are going to be blunt about a player’s medical history? Not sure some would want to hurt the chances of their players. And plus, it could violate HIPPA laws.
So throw yet another challenge into scouting for the 2021 draft, to go along with limited college schedules, opt-outs and no combine. The medical stuff is like the wild, wild west this year.
April 22, 2021
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