Despite a horrific injury from high school that seemingly had many teams concerned, the Eagles felt comfortable enough to draft Florida State defensive end Josh Sweat with pick No. 130 in the fourth round on Saturday.
The talent of Sweat has been questioned far less than his health, which seems to be a very legitimate concern. Sweat had surgery on his ACL, MCL and PCL before college and some teams were reportedly very concerned about that left knee.
The Eagles' doctors cleared Sweat before the draft.
"We can only speak to our medical and we have a lot of trust in our medical staff and our doctor, Dr. (Peter) DeLuca has done a great job for us for a long time," Eagles VP of football operations Howie Roseman said. "When he tells us the guy is ready to go, then we trust that. Then it goes down to the evaluation of the player and we were very excited to get this guy."
Sweat suffered the incredibly serious knee injury in September of 2014 and needed to be rushed to the hospital after not just tearing his ACL, but also dislocating his left knee.
"Some people don't know that if I damaged the arteries then I could have lost the bottom of my leg," Sweat said in 2016 about the injury. "My leg was dislocated. It wasn't like a torn ACL. It was bent at a 45-degree angle."
The Eagles had Sweat rated much higher than where they got him. Roseman and personnel head Joe Douglas said they couldn't speak for the other 31 teams, but is sure seems like this injury four years ago played a big role in where he was drafted.
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Despite injury concerns, Sweat missed just one game during his three years playing for the Seminoles. "He's been very durable at Florida State," Douglas said.
Once Eagles doctors cleared Sweat, the talent evaluators were happy to get him.
Sweat is 6-foot-5, 250 pounds and had 12 career sacks for the Seminoles. In 2017, he started 12 games and had 56 tackles, 5 1/2 sacks and 12 tackles for loss.
Douglas said the trait of Sweat's that stood out was his first few steps off the line. Douglas said Sweat gains ground quickly and makes things tough on the outside shoulder of offensive tackles.
The Eagles obviously have a pretty stacked defensive line room and they'll add Sweat to it. This is the seventh straight draft the Eagles have taken a defensive lineman. Roseman acknowledged defensive end wasn't a need, but noted that the draft is about balancing the short-term outlook with the long-term.
