Dabo Swinney Compares Trevor Lawrence to Stephen Curry
There's something about intertwining basketball and football that Dabo Swinney can't get out of his system.
When former Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson entered the 2017 NFL Draft, the Tigers head coach said if NFL teams passed on Watson, it was like "passing on Michael Jordan."
On the NFL Network's podcast "Move the Sticks" on Thursday, he again went back to the hardwood when finding a comparison for former Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence, who's expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft on April 29.
"Do you watch Steph Curry shoot the ball? It's just like, you just go, 'Wow'...to sit there and watch this guy shoot a basketball," Swinney said. "Well, that's how you feel when you watch Trevor throw a football. When you get to see him live and you get to see him move, you just go, 'Wow, it's just different.'"
Curry, who plays for the Golden State Warriors, is one of the NBA all-time great shooters. For three years, Clemson and college football fans have been entertained with Lawrence's ability to put passes where few QBs can get to at any level. The 6-foot-6, 220-pound signal-caller has been called the best NFL prospect at the key position since Andrew Luck in 2012.
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NFL Network analysts Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks liked Swinney's assessment:
"Steph Curry is a pure shooter," Jeremiah said, "I would say Trevor Lawrence is a pure thrower, Buck, so I don't think that's a crazy leap to make there between those two."
"One of the things that we've been excited about Trevor Lawrence for a long time is when you are around him, and we were around them early, we got a chance to see him in high school, we had the initial impression of wow that looks like a franchise quarterback," Brooks added. "From a prototypical standpoint, he's everything that you want. He's tall. He's long. He has great arm talent. He is athletic. Man, what more could you want, particularly when you start digging into his personality. So the comparison to Steph Curry, I absolutely buy because we define quarterbacks as shooters and scorers. Trevor Lawrence is one of the best shooters that we've seen at the position."
