College Football Recruiting: Should the NFL Allow One-and-Done?

Kevin Durant.

Carmelo Anthony.

Kyrie Irving.

Next up is Anthony Davis.

All of those aforementioned players only played one year of college basketball and declared for the NBA draft. The first three have gone on to become stars and Davis likely will be one as well.

However, basketball and the NBA is one thing. Football and the NFL is an entirely different animal.

Right now, the rule of eligibility for the NFL draft is "a player must be three years removed from his high school class."

This means the youngest you can declare for the draft is after your true junior year or redshirt sophomore year.

My question is: Should the NFL start to allow one-and-done players from college?

I have two arguments for this; one being for and the other being against.

I'll start with the former, as the first aspect that comes to mind is the notion that an 18-year-old kid can be given a gun and sent to war by the government, but can't be allowed to play professional football.

Think about the investment that NFL franchises would be making, as a prospect would only be about 19 years old and the teams would be getting a young, talented and eager player just coming into his physical prime.

The teams would have a young player that the fans can see grow, develop and be with their organization for a very long time.

Take someone like Sammy Watkins, the receiver from Clemson. Watkins finished his true freshman season with 82 receptions for 1,219 yards and 12 touchdowns, breaking 11 school records.

Obviously, Watkins can play college football. Maybe he wants to step up his level of competition, realizes that he is in his athletic prime right now and wants to be paid for his play?

Yet Watkins is not eligible for the draft for another two seasons. What happens if Watkins has another stellar year, then in his junior year he gets hurt and his career is over?

At least if he were allowed to enter the draft, he would have some money to fall back on in case of injury.

My argument for not allowing one-and-done college football players into the draft is that they're not physically ready.

No matter how good Texas' Malcolm Brown, Georgia's Isaiah Crowell and LSU's Kenny Hilliard were as freshmen, they aren't ready to be hit by Ray Lewis.

Even Rashard Mendenhall got his shoulder fractured by Lewis and he had been in the NFL for a few years.

Folks, Robert Nkemdiche is the most college-ready player I've seen—maybe ever. He's not physically ready to rush against Joe Thomas.

Jadeveon Clowney would get mauled and buried by Carl Nicks.

Marqise Lee enjoyed a fantastic freshman season for USC last year, but Charles Woodson and Darrelle Revis would eat him alive in press coverage right now.

I was an intern in the Browns' scouting department during the summer of Joe Thomas' rookie season. Thomas was a "man" in training camp and had the makings of the All-Pro he is today.

But he was just a rookie then, had a lot to learn and needed to get stronger still after four years of playing at Wisconsin.

My other argument against earlier entry into the draft is that the NFL is a mentally-taxing league, where you would be shocked at how much mental strain and intelligence is required to play.

You honestly think freshman quarterbacks like David Ash, Braxton Miller, Jacoby Brissett, Jeff Driskel and Teddy Bridgewater could have just declared for the draft and been ready to prepare for playing against the Ravens defense?

No, they are not.

There's technical reasons why the NFL should allow one-and-done players from college into the draft. However there are better reasons to keep things just the way they are now.