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Marcus Davenport Pec Injury, Small School Gems, and Risk

Davenport reportedly has a pec injury and will be out for the season if its a partial or full tear. If its just a strain, he would still be out at least a month and possibly limited all season.

His seeming inability to stay healthy relates to something I have always felt we should consider. We seem to love finding small school gems, even if we have to trade up and draft them early like Davenport. We see a player at an unknown school and realize they have the measurables and athleticism to succeed on a much higher level. But the one thing that playing at a small school can never do is test an athletes durability against players their own size and strength, or let them begin learning how to avoid injury against athletes their own size and strength. It may even create bad habits of relying on size and strength advantage as a crutch resulting in more injuries at the pro level. Its also possible that elite athletes who end up at small programs sometimes do because they themselves are a little nervous about times their knee almost buckled and don't want to risk a big injury for no pay.

If Alex Anzalone had played at UT San Antonio he would have probably looked like a man among boys, never been injured, and we might have identified him as an elite physical talent who was only overlooked due to coming from a small school and traded up to take him in the 1st round. Then it would have hurt a lot more when we found out he was glass.

With Terron Armstead, we got good value in the 3rd round, probably where we should have looked at Davenport because players fall even with hype. But coming from a small school, Armstead has had to make a lot of adjustments to stay on the field.

I am just saying that in the future, when we spend two 1st round picks on a player at a very physically challenging position, lets make sure they had 3-4 years at a real college program to prove they are not made of glass. That means something. You still never know, but the closer the audition is to the big show the more it means, and you can't figure this out with a tape measure or stop watch.