Ravens director of player personnel Eric DeCosta had to ask G.M. Ozzie Newsome to push back a personnel meeting last week by ten minutes.
DeCosta had a good excuse: he tore his Achilles tendon playing racquetball during his lunch break with senior vice president Kevin Byrne during his lunch break.
After a quick self-diagnosis was confirmed by the team trainer, DeCosta went right back to work according to Jamison Hensley of the Baltimore Sun. Surgery was delayed more than a week (until Friday) so that DeCosta could recover over Easter weekend.
The rest of the day’s meetings went as planned, with one small change. DeCosta couldn’t stand up to adjust the team’s draft board like he usually does, so someone else filled in for him. The injury added a level of difficulty to a busy month for DeCosta, who also signed a new contract recently and became a father for the third time.
“Hopefully, I don’t have to take a lot of pain medication on draft day,” DeCosta said. “But I have the medication if I need to take it . . . based on how the front board’s coming off.”