When Darnell Washington fell down boards, it seems that the teams and the Steelers especially were surprised that he even made it to No. 93 overall, but it would be reported later that concerns around his knees were the reason Washington experienced the slide.
However, Washington himself brushed those concerns aside. He stated that he did have a knee scope at one point for some cartilage flare-up, but outside of that, the tight end has no recollection of any knee injuries in his entire football career.
“You know, with my health, I feel great,” Washington said. “Some teams had concerns with knees because I’m taller and a bigger guy. They talked about some knee swelling. For me, I had no injury with my knees ever, knock on wood. I never tore anything in the knees. I had knee surgery on the right knee, but that was just cartilage that flared up, they went in and cleaned it.”
Regardless, it seems that many scouts were perplexed by what went down. Talking to EPSN’s Jeremy Fowler, one scout called the fall for Washington ‘laughable‘. The scout viewed the fall as an over-adjustment by NFL teams to the information and thinks Washington should have plenty of years in his NFL career.
” had him as a late-first-round talent,” an NFC scout said to Fowler. “He really moves well for his size. It’s laughable — he’ll end up playing at least eight years.”
Darnell Washington has had lower-body injuries in the past, including ankle and foot injuries. He had a broken foot in 2021, which required surgery. Then, he suffered an ankle injury in the national championship game, However, he has never had knee injuries, and it seems that the Steelers were plenty okay with any concerns that they had with his injury history when they picked him on the board.