Overview
Position: Wide receiver
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 187 pounds
School: Georgia Bulldogs
Combine Performance Data
40-yard dash: 4.33 seconds (tied for fifth-best at 2019 Combine)
Bench press: 17 reps
Vertical jump: 36.5 inches
Broad jump: 9 feet, 11 inches
Mecole Hardman 2019 NFL Draft Profile
Few players were as highly sought after out of high school in 2016 as Mecole Hardman. He played on both sides of the football at Elbert County High in Bowman, GA, seeing time at defensive back as well as quarterback. It led to him receiving the athlete designation by many recruiting services. Rivals rated him as a five-star recruit and listed him as the 11th-best prospect in the nation. Not surprisingly, he received scholarship offers from a multitude of major programs including eight from SEC schools. It took him until National Signing Day to make his decision, but he ultimately stayed in-state and committed to Georgia.
Hardman was well-aware that a change in role was imminent once he was given a chance to contribute on offense. But it didn’t come during his true freshman season as he played exclusively on special teams in the 11 games he played in. He finally got his chance in 2017 as he appeared in all 15 games and made a single start at wide receiver, accumulating 418 receiving yards and catching four touchdown passes. It included what was then a career-high 80 yards and a touchdown in the national title game against Alabama. He added a further 532 yards and seven touchdowns while also averaging 20.1 yards per punt return as a junior before declaring for the draft.
Strengths
- can eat up cushions with an incendiary initial burst;
- a playmaker after the catch on underneath routes;
- is a legitimate vertical threat once he’s at full speed;
- a confident and reliable hands catcher;
- consistently separates on comebacks as corners will overly compensate for his downfield speed;
- quickness off the line of scrimmage makes him tough to jam;
- brings immediate value as a return specialist.
Weaknesses
- undersized and thinly built below the hips;
- overly rounded transitions at the stem of routes;
- struggled to haul in contested catches;
- doesn’t have a particularly wide catch radius;
- needs to expand the number of routes available at his disposal;
- could be more determined and assertive as a blocker;
- may not have the play strength to consistently release from press coverage;
- might be limited to slot duty;
- fairly inexperienced, having garnered just six starts in college.
NFL Comparison: Randall Cobb
Teams With Need at Position: Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins
Projection: Late third round
Bottom Line
He won’t be the first Georgia wideout off the board as Riley Ridley will almost certainly get picked ahead of him. But Hardman will follow at some point, potentially late on day two of the draft. Obviously, the one characteristic that stands out the most when discussing Hardman is his innate speed. It gives him legit playmaking ability after the catch, especially on shallow crossing routes but also over the top.
But Hardman is an incredibly raw prospect with a significant dearth of starter-level reps. It becomes evident on tape in that he ran a fairly basic route tree at Georgia and the routes he did run lacked crispness at transition points. Though he’s a fairly reliable catcher of the football in open space, question marks abound as to whether he can consistently haul in contested catches in the pros.
Where Hardman should immediately contribute is on special teams where he was blisteringly effective despite a small sample size. It’ll take time for him to develop into a difference-maker as a receiver. But he clearly has the speed NFL teams look for. If he can successfully hone his craft as a pass catcher, he has all the makings of a starting slot receiver at the next level.
