Eric DeCosta details the NFL Combine medical evaluation process

Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said medical evaluations have become one of the most challenging parts of the draft process, citing a growing number of injury concerns among prospects and increased difficulty projecting long-term durability. DeCosta also described the emotional weight of receiving daily medical updates at the NFL Scouting Combine. "In a perfect world, you wouldn't be drafting players that have injuries.

I think, in Emery [Jones Jr. 's] case, we certainly knew he had the injury, [and] we knew he was going to have the surgery. We understood that where we were picking in the third round, he was clearly the best player for us.

And [we] loved his game. I had a chance to see him at the Senior Bowl, but generally, if you had the chance [with] all things being equal, you'd just draft guys that were totally healthy. As I said, it's getting tougher and tougher to do that because players are getting older, and more and more guys are having surgery, and more and more guys have medical concerns.

And that's a challenge. And there's a lot of those guys in the draft every single year, and it's gotten worse. So, we have to find [information] through talking to our doctors and trainers and other people, we have to have a comfort [level] with certain types of injuries that guys are going to have.