Jermod McCoy’s troubling but understandable draft slide ends with Raiders’ fourth-round selection

Fernando Mendoza has officially gone #1 overall to the Las Vegas Raiders. Deserved? Absolutely, but the dorky Mendoza heading to the gritty toughness of the Raiders has "bad fit" written all over it

The NFL Draft isn’t just about picking the most talented player. If it were, Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy would have been selected on Thursday. Instead, his massive slide out of the first round didn’t end until the Las Vegas Raiders picked him in the fourth round on Saturday.

So why is it that a player with an elite draft profile that includes big plays on tape, size, speed and ball skills didn't get a whiff of attention during the draft's first two days?

He's got a major medical red flag that made picking him simply too risky for all 32 teams. And that's the way things went through the first, second and third rounds until the Raiders stepped out in the fourth round with the 101st pick to select McCoy.

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And, let's be clear, this is a gamble by general manager John Spytek for a team that plays in a city built on gambling.

On the one hand, McCoy is supremely gifted. But...

He suffered a torn ACL at the end of the 2024 college football season, had surgery in January 2025 and then missed the entire 2025 season. That wasn't the worst part.

General manager John Spytek of the Las Vegas Raiders looks on before a game against the Cleveland Browns at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Nov. 23, 2025. (Chris Unger/Getty Images)

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McCoy suffered from what former San Diego Chargers (back then) team doctor David Chao told OutKick is "full thickness cartilage damage." That previously required a "plug" that is grafted into the bone and