With the Cincinnati Bengals in desperate need of knocking this No. 10 pick out of the park next Thursday, one would think they cannot afford to take a risk as big as drafting Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy in Round 1.
McCoy missed all of the 2025 season with a torn ACL. After what happened with Shemar Stewart in 2025, not to mention the busts that Cedric Ogbuehi and John Ross turned into after tearing their ACLs in college, the Bengals can’t take a risk and draft McCoy at No. 10, right?
As if the
risk wasn’t already high enough, we’ve now got a report of a potential issue with McCoy’s knee ahead of next week’s draft.
Tony Pauline of Essentially Sports wrote the following about McCoy:
“I’m told that red flags were raised after teams deemed McCoy’s knee to be a degenerative condition. But, of course, medical opinions differ team by team since there is no central body to govern a physical.”
Now, the Bengals did draft Ja’Marr Chase after he didn’t play in 2020 due to opting out with COVID-19 heavily impacting the college football season. But that’s different. Chase was healthy. He just didn’t want to play with COVID-19 casting a dark cloud over the entire country. That pick has turned out to be great.
This is different. We’re talking about a player coming off a torn ACL. And the Bengals have drafted players like this before, and most of them turned out disastrous.
As devastating an injury as a player can possibly have. McCoy may turn out to be a great player, and that’s great for him. But there’s too much uncertainty and too much of a risk for the Bengals to draft him. If they had made the playoffs even two of the last three seasons with a good defense, they would have the benefit of the doubt, from me at least, to take a risk on drafting him.
The Bengals aren’t in that position. They need to take a proven, injury-free player.
