At either rate, they knew about it and drafted him if it had been a problem since 2017.
I want to say this is one of those situations where the surgery would've just pushed back his draft readiness but it also was not likely to get injured worse in a way that would end his career. The money move was to just play through it and let the NFL franchise pay to fix it if it got more aggravated.
I've seen dudes in the military run a full PT test with a broken bone in their foot, some sort of labrum issue, etc simply because not having a qualifying PT score was going to jam up some kind of career progression need. Go on profile after you get pinned with a new rank or finish a school. That's just business.