Anthony Edwards has been compared to Michael Jordan quite a bit over the past year or so, but that has largely been because of his exploits on the basketball court. The two are similarly sized, similarly explosive shooting guards that take pride in their defense and were drafted by teams that hadn’t won a championship yet. On Sunday, however, Edwards again inspired Jordan comparisons, but this time, it was for something that could happen off of the court.
In 1993, Jordan retired after winning his third NBA championship and attempted to play professional baseball with the Chicago White Sox. The attempt ultimately failed before he reached the major leagues, and he returned to the NBA in 1995. In an interview with ESPN ahead of Tuesday’s Cover Story release, Edwards claimed that, he, too, wants to try a second sport… but with a caveat.
“I told my buddies, I said, if I win a ring in the next three to four years, I’m going to play football,” Edwards said.
There is ample video evidence of Edwards’ potential on the gridiron, but it all came before his 12th birthday. Edwards did not play high school football as it had become apparent by that point that his future was in basketball.
“I could have been a professional football player,” Edwards told SBNation in 2019. “I was really good. I was the No. 1 running back in the country at 9 or 10. I stopped playing because I seen my brothers playing basketball. I thought it looked more fun.”
Still, there is a rich history of basketball players making the leap to football after taking years off. Those basketball players just tend not to be NFL stars. Jimmy Graham and Antonio Gates became superstar tight ends in the NFL despite playing college basketball. Neither had guaranteed financial futures available in basketball, so the jump made sense for them. Edwards is in the middle of a max contract, and based on both his own skill and the rapid growth of the salary cap, he’d be sacrificing hundreds of millions of dollars if he ever left the NBA to play in the NFL, no matter how good he turned out to be at football.
Given his body type, Edwards probably couldn’t play running back in the NFL. Edwards is 6-foot-5, whereas most running backs are closer to or even below six feet. Even a notoriously tall back like Derrick Henry is only 6-foot-3, whereas 6-foot-5 wide receivers tend to be more common and have significant utility. Running backs need to navigate tight spaces, which is hard to do when you’re that tall, but size can be very beneficial when it comes to high-pointing passes and catching them over smaller defensive backs.
In any event, no matter how much Edwards might want to play football, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that he ever does, whether or not he gets his NBA championship ring in the next few years. No NBA team would ever allow one of its players to play football on the side. The injury risk is too great. He would have to retire from professional basketball, or at least sign some sort of contract with very little guaranteed money, to actually make that dream a reality. If Jordan can retire from basketball to take on another sport, anyone can, but that doesn’t mean it’s something we should ever actually expect Edwards to do.
