Former Georgia tailback D’Andre Swift is one of ten Bulldogs invited to Indianapolis to perform skills assessments before a mass of professional football scouts.
USA TODAY’s DraftWire has provided a plethora of pre-NFL Draft analyses leading up to this month’s NFL Scouting Combine. The latest from Patrick Conn provides a favorable projection for invitee D’Andre Swift.
“Swift is likely the top rated running back on most draft boards and could be the first one selected in the NFL Draft. Based on how he plays the game, Swift has future New England Patriot written all over him (well, if they didn’t already have former teammate Sony Michel).”
The analysis points out how Swift’s speed is rare given his muscular build, shorter-than-average height, and the resultant low center of gravity.
Swift’s footwork and balance given his bulky build have NFL scouts intrigued. He’s a ball carrier who requires a full-effort tackle to down. He is also fully capable of jumping clean over defenders quite a bit larger than he.
No shoulder-to-shoulder. No shoestrings. No arm tackles.
In other words, D’Andre Swift is too jacked, too swole, too yolked to have any sort of right being as, uh, swift as he is. That’s because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
D'Andre Swift's Dad eats dumbbells for breakfast and barbells for dinner pic.twitter.com/WQlg2CHWhW
— Jack McGuire (@JackMacCFB) October 7, 2018
However, the projector does bring up a possible criticism:
“As with any running back in the class, Swift will need to focus on his pass protecting technique at the NFL level…Durability is going to be a concern, not just on the injury front. At Georgia he never had more than 220 touches on offense, so a heavier workload will be a concern moving forward.”
The analyst conservatively assess Swift as a top 50 pick and compares his comprehensive run, catch, block capabilities to Christian McCaffrey.