It all started after the throttling of Alabama in the National Championship game. The Trevor Lawrence hype train took off after he led the Clemson Tigers to a 15-0 season that ended with a trophy in a 44-16 butt-kicking of the perceived 'Greatest Team of All-Time' in Alabama.
People were putting out articles and social media posts saying that Lawrence would be a Top Ten pick in this year's NFL Draft if not the first pick overall. While the talent is there, the idea that Lawrence is ready for the NFL at the ripe age of 19 is a bit premature.
Then last week we had Tom Brady's agent, Don Yee, put out a statement that he would like to bring Lawrence in to be a part of a developmental league he is creating (see article here).
Now the commissioner of the reborn XFL, Oliver Luck, is next in line to try and acquire the services of Sunshine Lawrence. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk put out an article referencing statements that Luck made in regards to Clemson's golden boy.
Here is an excerpt from Florio's article...
Last week in Atlanta, XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck reiterated the position that the upstart league can, and presumably will, pursue players who aren’t yet eligible for the other major professional leagues.
“We certainly believe that we have the ability to sign a guy that’s been out of high school for a year or two years or has played college ball and for whatever reason — academic ineligibility or needs to make some money or is transferring — doesn’t want to sit out a year,” Luck said. “We think there’s the possibility of taking some of those guys. How many? And how do we do that? We haven’t really figured that out yet. I want to get our eight head coaches on board before we make any sort of policy decisions in that regard. But I can almost guarantee that we’ll take a deep look into a lot players who might be two years or one year out of high school.”
The first candidate could be Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who remains two years away from eligibility for the NFL draft. He could spend one more year at Clemson, and then join the XFL next February. Alternatively, he could skip the 2019 college season, play (and get paid) in the XFL for 2020 and 2021, and head straight to the draft.
Similar to Don Yee's ideas for Lawrence, this one is also extremely unlikely to happen. Nonetheless, these kind of statements and notions are sure to continue and maybe one day, for some other highly-touted prospect, it will become a reality.
But fear not Clemson fans, Lawrence will be at Clemson for two more years and enter the NFL Draft like any normal early college entry.
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