If he can stay healthy, the Raiders probably got the steal of the draft in Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy, but there are still a lot of unknowns around McCoy’s surgically repaired knee and his future in the NFL.
Prior to McCoy’s injury getting so much attention, a “bone plug” wasn’t an injury many NFL fans were familiar with. Not surprisingly, the Raiders haven’t offered a lot of information on McCoy’s knee, but according to the California Post’s Vinny Bonsignore, there is a second surgery that could be an option for McCoy but might also have a negative impact on his prognosis.
“There’s obviously a concern about longevity with the knee. There’s a procedure that has been bandied about that they could do to maybe enhance the longevity, but it comes with some initial risk,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“Number one, it probably would mean he wouldn’t play his rookie year. And number two, there’s no guarantee that the surgery works. And if the surgery doesn’t work, this is based on reports and medical people that we’ve all kind of heard, that it could actually do more damage than good.”
Earlier this month, one of the world’s most respected orthopedic doctors, Dr. Lanny Johnson, talked about McCoy’s injury on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
“It depends on the size of the injury and the diameter of the plug,” Dr. Johnson told Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter.
“A one-centimeter plug is approximately a half an inch. Any of those that are in the small areas or say a half an inch or less have an excellent prognosis and the literature would… I don’t have any knowledge of any individual player, but the literature would say that that patient has a very good prognosis for let’s say 10 to 15 years, providing there’s no other arthritis in the knee or providing in his case that ACL is stable, providing that he rehabilitates well,” Johnson continued.
“But just on the basis of that lesion with a, and I don’t know whether he had a plug taken from his own bone put there or one taken from a cadaver bone. The ones from your own bone usually have a little better prognosis than one taken from a cadaver bone. But once taken from a cadaver bone are very successful.”
All 32 teams were provided with McCoy’s medical information prior to the draft, and despite more than half of the teams polled by ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler taking McCoy off their draft board, it is believed that McCoy’s knee plug was smaller than the “half-an-inch” referenced by Dr. Johnson.
The Raiders, nor anyone else, are going to discuss McCoy’s medical information, but there is reason to believe his “plug” was within the limits of what Dr. Johnson would consider optimistic.
Shortly after the draft, former Raiders’ offensive lineman Marshall Newhouse discussed McCoy’s knee, and said at the time that the odds were leaning toward McCoy not needing another procedure on his knee.
Newhouse clarified that he wasn’t speaking as a medical professional, but it’s fair to assume some of the rumors making rounds in the last few weeks have come from sources familiar with McCoy’s knee.
“This is that balance of risk and reward. I’ve heard that he’s healed from the ACL. [McCoy] could play this year,” Newhouse said on the Just Win podcast.
“The question is if he’s going to need another additional procedure that the rehab is 12 to 14 months and then there’s like a 20 percent chance, we won’t turn into the doctors here on that procedure… not working out. And so that’s a very big risk but one that you take with the 101st pick. So it’s interesting. Time absolutely will tell on this one.”
x: @raidersbeat
I wonder if this was a year or even six months away from being ready if he would’ve been dumb enough to risk any time in the NFL by running drills and a 4.3 on his pro day? Really? Common sense really has left the building.