Justin Hardy: An Impact Rookie for the Falcons?

Justin Hardy came to the Atlanta Falcons as the team’s 4th Round selection in the 2015 NFL Draft after a record-setting career as a wide receiver for the East Carolina Pirates.

Justin Hardy has had surprisingly high expectations for an American Athletic Conference wideout drafted in the 4th Round. However, many pundits believed that Hardy had just as much talent, if not more, than some of the wide receivers that went ahead of him in the first three rounds.

College Football fans might remember East Carolina’s strong 2014 season. QB Shane Carden was briefly in the Heisman race, completing nearly every pass he attempted. Most often times, those passes went to one standout WR in particular: Justin Hardy, the NCAA’s All-Time career receptions leader.

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Had Justin Hardy played at a Power 5 school, no doubt he wouldn’t have made it out of the 2nd Round in the 2015 NFL Draft. The only other knocks on Hardy I could think of besides his Conference were his relatively slight frame or maybe that he was a former walk-on at ECU.

The Atlanta Falcons selected Justin Hardy with the hopes that he could become the heir apparent to future Ring of Honor member, the venerable WR Roddy White. Dan Quinn and his coaching staff had no problem pushing Hardy as a rookie in camp, just to see how much of a workload the first-year wideout could handle. Falcons fans started to believe that Justin Hardy was arguably the team’s best selection of the entire draft.

However, I think as a fan base we didn’t account for the adjustment period of that all NFL rookies need to some degree in the preseason. Justin’s was steeper than most, as he had to transition from the AAC to the NFL.

In his first preseason game against the Tennessee Titans, it seemed as if Hardy was pushing too much, trying to make explosive plays out of nothing. Perhaps it’s the inherent chip on his shoulder that he always plays with, but the sure-handedness the Atlanta Falcons drafted in May did not present itself in the first glorified exhibition.

Preseason Week 2 against the New York Jets was a tale of two halves for the Atlanta Falcons. Atlanta was completely dominant over the Jets with their first team, while there were a great deal of concerns with the backups, as QB Bryce Petty threw the pigskin around the gridiron like he was still with the Baylor Bears.

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I’m not sure when, but sometime between the second half of Preseason Week 2 against the New York Jets and the first half of Preseason Week 3 against the Miami Dolphins, Justin Hardy started to put it all together. Whether it was T.J. Yates in the Dolphins game of Sean Renfree versus the Baltimore Ravens, Justin Hardy became that reliable pass catcher Atlanta drafted in the 4th Round out of East Carolina.

He played within himself for the last two preseason games and yielded better on-field performances because of it. While we shouldn’t take much stock in exhibition contests, Justin Hardy made a point to Atlanta Falcons OC Kyle Shanahan that he’s ready for the big time when the Philadelphia Eagles come to town for Monday Night Football, Week 1.

With Roddy White still recovering from offseason elbow surgery and KR/WR Devin Hester nursing an injured finger, Justin Hardy proved to me that he can start in the slot if need be. While I would put him 4th on the WR depth chart entering the season behind Julio Jones, Roddy White, and Leonard Hankerson, there’s no shame in that, as the Atlanta Falcons have arguably the deepest WR group in the NFL.

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