lets see. right now, guys wait either 3 or 4 (sometimes 5 if they redshirt) years after they start college to enter the nfl. and every year, the cream of the crop of those drafted have big impacts on the league. likewise, people drafted from HS in the nba, take 3 to 4 years before they make big impacts on the league (and only the cream of the crop do). and guys drafted in HS in MLB usually go to the minors and wait until they develop before competing in the MLB. how is the nfl any different? you need 3 or 4 years out of HS before you become physically mature just like it mostly is in baseball and basketball. kobe scored 7 out of HS, kg 10, tmac 7. that would be like a receiver getting like 25 or 30 receptions with 1 or 2 td's. you don't think a roy williams or larry fitzgerald could come out of HS and put up weak stats like that? only the positions where it's all about your body and strength (since that's what you need to catch up) like lineman or LB would be virtually impossible to break into i think. a receiver with speed and size or a rb with speed and a little size could put up the same weak stats that nba high schoolers without developed bodies are only capable of putting up.
Because in baseball or basketball you don't have 300 lb mofos who can run trying to take your head off while you try to become physically mature for 16 weeks a year
hence. why only the best and biggest would ever think of coming out and why they would struggle just like in the other sports. running backs in the nfl are already much smaller than the guys trying to kill them, and so are receivers but hitting a hole and getting open don't take the physical ability blocking a D-lineman or rushing an O-lineman or trying to tackle an nfl guy take. they're skill positions and you could at least get on the field and get a catch or 2 or 5-7 carries as the best of the best from high school. i understand the nfl is more physical than any of the other leagues but unless they're going to make the receivers or rb's stand straight up and take hits from the 300 pounders (and it's not like there aren't 270-280 pounders in the ncaa), i don't see how much different it is than the nba/mlb. look at lebron and amare, they had nba bodies out of high school, are you saying no one can have an nfl body (or a reasonable facsimile) out of high school? just like the nba only gets 1 or 2 HSers a year who try to test the draft and even they struggle tremendously, the nfl would be the same. yeah, the hits would hurt more if you were 10 to 15 pounds off where you should be, but you don't die b/c you're 205 and not 220. you just suck more the way kobe or tmac or kg struggled until they put on the weight necessary to bang with the much bigger guys in the nba. like i said, it's not like the guys in college are nice when they hit you, they're just a little bit slower and a little bit smaller (at least in big time D1 ball) and so you'd struggle more and, yes, you might get hurt more. but it doesn't mean you'd follow that much different a development path than an nba or mlb guy. if all 3 sports end up with guys at the same point of development 4 years after HS, it makes sense they would compete relatively the same in the interim. injury is the only thing i can think of that would be different (and NFL guys get injured more as it is than NBA and MLB guys) but competition wise it would be similar. and i haven't even given my take of the subject. i'm completely against the ruling. i see no reason the nfl shouldn't be able to make it's own rules regarding when someone can join it's company and for reason i just can't make pro sports leagues fit into the right to work issue. maybe part of it is just because i don't wanna always be worrying about guys on UT leaving early (that's the selfish part of me) and part is i don't want the nfl to have to take lesser players if it doesn't want to.
I got no problem with this. If an NFL team wants to take to take the time to bring along an 18 year old that's their business. Is he ready ? Probaly not. But I believe hes the #1 running back in the country so somebody is going to select him. I wouldnt mind if the Texans got him in the later rounds. I wouldnt mind seeing more players coming out early it brings more excitment to the draft and the end it will spread the balance out in college football.
Not so, guys like Chandler, Bender and Brown are exactly why they should skip college. Had Chandler gotten injured in college he could have fallen like Loren Woods, had Bender and Brown gone to college and looked ordinary they would have been drafted lower too. In sum, with the guaranteed 1st round money, you should turn pro when your stock is highest, even if inflated. How many players of the year in high school excell even in college? Most don't, which is why the Duke's, Kansas' and NC's don't win the title every year.
the guarenteed money/contracts for rookies is a big difference between the NBA and NFL... the current NBA system for 1st rounders makes it very attractive for a high schooler if they get drafted in the first round......... perhaps one way to stop the current flood of high schoolers to the NBA is only offer the guarenteed money/contracts to players over a certain age with the NFL.... while money isn't guarenteed and while teams don't use first round picks on high schoolers the drain will be minimal.....
The circumstances are completely different. First of all, the HS examples you gave were early. Now, alot more than 1 or 2 are leaving for the pros. If we're only talking about skill positions (RB & WR), there's a few things to consider. 1. The NFL doesn't have a farm system like MLB and doesn't develop players over 3 years like the NBA. If you're drafted you better be an impact player of some kind. NOW. 2. The level of competition is so great a jump physically and mentally. More so in football than any other sport. The playbook, coverages, assignments would be too much to handle for most immediately. I'm not talking in 3 years...back to point 1 3. The physical competition and beating would be too much. The HS receivers wouldn't be able to get off the line and would be completely shut down by corners who actually have skills and are faster and stronger than they are. RB's can't run by scrubs like they did in HS. They have to be able to block in pass protection and run through holes that close so quickly that most high school kids wouldn't even have noticed that was an opening. 4. A 16 game season against quality competition would destroy them physically and mentally So, yes there MIGHT be 1 or 2 kids who possibly could make the jump if he had the combination of being a freak athlete and playing in a complicated HS offense against quality opponents. But even then, the comparison is so remotely far it's still a joke.
I'll admit that I forgot McGrady, but Lewis, Harrington, and Bender are certainly not top ten. As for the Euros, they play overseas in leagues that could be considered about equivalent to D1 college level. Playing in Europe is the same as playing in college. It is where people can hone there skills. If the players want to go play in NFL Europe for a few years, that would be the same thing. Most NBA players that jump from high school ride the pine for a while and then eventually some of them become good, while others disappear into obscurity. Another difference is that the NFL uses a hard cap, so they are not going to have high draft picks sitting on the bench for 3-4 years developing, all the while making 1st round pick money, because that will bring the team down. If a player isn't getting the big money coming out of high school, then there is no reason not to go to college and work yourself into a position to get the big money deal.
The NFL should really encourage some kid to enter early, just to make an example of him. That would probably staunch the flow, at least for a while...
The question is about eligibilty not gettign drafted or success. To make it simple does anyone on this board thing they are better prepared to enter the NFL than Maurice Clarett? There are plenty of us over 21-22 and do any of us think we were more able to goto the NFL than Maurice just because of our age. The NFL rule had nothing to do with football experience (the rule did not say a player had to play 3 years of college football rather they said you had to be 3 years out of HS), it was simply about age. All the judges decision said was that he was eligible to be a part of the NFL it doesn't say someone has to draft him and it doesn't say the judge thinks he will be succesful. And to go one step further what is the magic thing that happens between a players second and third year in college that suddenly made them NFL ready? THe NFL set up a date (3 years out of HS) and the courts struck it down. Will it change NCAA football and the NFL, yes it will. To what degree, no one knows.
What College Athletics should do is quit being so stubborn with its rules and let the pro teams draft the players while still being able to attend college. They could set up some program that gives NFL teams the ability to draft these kids, and pay them, while getting training on the College level. Then teams could negotiate contracts that state the player has to stay at whatever school they choose a certain amount of time, and the contract is up at the end of that time. If the team deems the player wasn’t fit for the NFL, they part ways. The kid got a chance to play college football, got paid, and hopefully got an education. And that prevents opening the Pandora’s Box of schools paying players, something I’m firmly against. The ultimate irony of the Clarett situation is it’s the greed of college football that makes these kids take illegal gifts. He then becomes ineligible, but instead of ruining his life, he has created a whole new set of problems for college, and he won. They really look foolish for sticking to their ridiculous rules. College should stop the charade and work openly with the NFL so their product won’t be ruined.
