FanHouse

A look at the 2007 junior class as players decide whether to enter the 2008 NFL draft.

Indiana wide receiver James Hardy has all the talent to be a top-notch NFL player. He could stand to be a little faster, but he's tall (listed at 6-foot-7) and athletic (also played on Indiana's basketball team) and has good hands, and he owns the Indiana records for career receiving touchdowns (36), receiving yards (2,740) and receptions (191) and single-season receiving touchdowns (16) and receptions (79). Hardy announced today that he's entering the NFL draft, and that's the right move.

That's not to say he'll be a first-round pick, though. In fact, I don't think he will be. In Roger Goodell's NFL, teams are increasingly leery of drafting players with character concerns, and Hardy has some. In May of 2006 he was arrested on battery charges in what authorities said was an attack on his girlfriend and their infant son. Four months later he was suspended by the team for two games for still-undisclosed personal reasons that were apparently unrelated to the arrest.

That will scare a lot of teams off from taking Hardy in the first round, but the fact is, even if he had returned to school in 2008 and been a choir boy, those teams would have been just as scared off. As a football player, Hardy doesn't need another year of college to be ready for the NFL. As a person, teams will either think Hardy is worthy of a chance or think he's too big a risk. Another year at Indiana wouldn't change that.

See the full list of 2008 NFL draft early entries.