4/29/2016 football Edit

Jaylon Smith Drafted 34th Overall By The Dallas Cowboys

Jaylon Smith went 34th overall to the Dallas Cowboys.

Andrew Owens • InsideNDSports

Assistant Editor

Former Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith came off the board in the NFL Draft on Friday evening and is headed to Dallas after the Cowboys selected him with the 34th overall pick, the third in the second round.

Smith started all 39 games while at Notre Dame and was a presumptive top-10 - and possibly even top five - selection until suffering a devastating knee injury in the Jan. 1 loss to Ohio State at the Fiesta Bowl. The play that cost him millions of dollars caused a torn ACL and LCL as well as nerve damage, which was the most significant factor leading to teams' hesitation to select him.

Dr. Dan Cooper, the surgeon who performed Smith’s surgery and who also is the Dallas Cowboys’ head team physician, recently revealed to USA Today that Smith has foot-drop, which means he currently cannot lift his left foot.

“He’s had time for his nerve to regrow two inches, and the area of where his nerve was injured is six inches above the muscle that it innervates,” Cooper told USA Today. “I wouldn’t really expect him to get much innervation back into that muscle for two or three more months. Then once it does – I’ve seen kids who are completely paralyzed like him on the lateral side and not able to pick their foot up at all (that) wind up being totally normal.”

Cooper added that there is no guarantee that the nerve ever fully recovers.

Smith's loss of value insurance policy should pay him a total of $900,000 — $700,000 for falling out of the first round and an additional $200,000 for not being chosen with the first two picks of the second round.

According to doctors, Smith almost certainly will need to sit out the 2016 season and it is currently unknown when - or if - he will regain full strength. Smith's former teammate, left tackle Ronnie Stanley, became the first Notre Dame product to go in the top 10 of the NFL Draft in 22 years when the Baltimore Ravens picked him sixth overall.

Later in the first round, the Houston Texans moved up one slot to select former Irish receiver Will Fuller with the 21st pick. Stanley and Fuller became the fifth and sixth players of the Brian Kelly era to be first-round selections. Smith almost certainly would have joined them had he not been injured.