The NFL’s annual “Super Wild Card Weekend” kicks off Saturday afternoon and stretches through Monday night with a six-pack of first-round playoff games that will surely entertain. A dozen starting quarterbacks take the stage in the next three days, beginning with Saturday’s Cleveland at Houston matchup that features the youngest playoff QB (CJ Stroud, 22) vs. the oldest playoff QB (Joe Flacco, 38).
I took some time this week to look back on these 12 quarterbacks as high school athletes. From 2000s-era Flacco to the 25-and-under club of Stroud, Green Bay’s Jordan Love, and Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts, here’s the full list of 12 starters and notable traits that link these quarterbacks as high school prospects, regardless of age.
SUPER WILDCARD WEEKEND STARTERS
- – Joe Flacco, Cleveland
- – CJ Stroud, Houston
- – Mason Rudolph, Pittsburgh
- – Josh Allen, Buffalo
- – Tua Tagovailoa, Miami
- – Patrick Mahomes II, Kansas City
- – Jordan Love, Green Bay
- – Dak Prescott, Dallas
- – Matthew Stafford, LA Rams
- – Jared Goff, Detroit
- – Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia
- – Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay
MULTIPLE SPORTS
Yes, I know a lot of readers get tired of seeing “multi-sport athlete” repeatedly in much of the content the 247Sports national scouting team produces. But the reality is that multi-sport participation represents perhaps the most pervasive common trait among NFL Draft selections – or in this case, playoff starting quarterbacks.
Just how pervasive is that multi-sport participation among this weekend’s 12 starting QBs? Concrete evidence exists that 11 of 12 played another sport at some point in high school.
Five of the 12 quarterbacks played three sports. Flacco, Allen, Mahomes, and Goff played football, baseball, and basketball. Mahomes and Goff are sons of former MLB players Pat Mahomes and Jerry Goff. Allen and Mahomes led their basketball teams in scoring as seniors; they also each eclipsed the 90-mph threshold on the mound.
Love played basketball and also competed in track and field, specifically the three jumps events. That included a 6-foot high jump personal record, according to MileSplit. Hurts represented another track and field athlete with an excellent shot put ledger (46-11.25), especially for a QB, and part-time 200-meter reps.
BASKETBALL
Let’s take that multi-sport category a step further: Which other sport was most common among these quarterbacks? Basketball. Eight of the 12 signal callers played basketball in high school: Flacco, Stroud, Mahomes, Rudolph, Allen, Love, Prescott, and Goff.
This commonality is no surprise because we have seen ample evidence of basketball participation in recent NFL Draft results, including the 2023 draft. Andrew Ivins, 247Sports director of scouting, said this about the value of hoops on the football field:
“Think about it. Basketball is a sport where you either need to go through or around someone to get a bucket. On defense, one must hold his ground and mirror opponents, oftentimes while in reverse. Mastering quick, fluid movement patterns in the gym is proving to be an absolute gamechanger on the gridiron. So is having a strong feeling for what’s going on around you at all times.”
TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA
With four apiece, the Lone Star State and the Golden State account for two-thirds of the dozen quarterbacks starting this weekend. Texas boasts Mahomes, Stafford, Hurts, and Mayfield, while California produced Stroud, Allen, Love, and Goff.
Texas and California are not surprises in this category. Those two states consistently produce high numbers of NFL-caliber quarterbacks and FBS starters. To start the 2023 college football season, Texas (29) and California (12) ranked first and third, respectively, in most FBS starters.
Sheer numbers as a result of population bases play a significant role, obviously, but Texas and California are two states that have long been credited with a hyperactive offseason 7-on-7 culture that fosters the development of quarterbacks and other skill players.
REPS, REPS, REPS
As simple as it sounds, the more live game reps, the better, when projecting high school quarterbacks to the pros. Every wildcard weekend starter got at least two full seasons of varsity starting duty in high school. That significant volume of action falls in line with what we have seen in recent NFL Draft results: the vast majority of drafted quarterbacks throw a whole lot of passes in high school.
Based on full two-year stats across their junior and senior seasons, 8 of 9 quarterbacks with available said statistics threw at least 500 passes in those two campaigns. The other, Love, threw more than 400 passes. Rudolph threw a whopping 1,352 passes across his final three seasons, including 986 junior-senior, while Mahomes threw 912 passes in his junior and senior years.
Next in 11th- and 12th-grade cumulative passes thrown, in order, were Stroud (702), Goff (667), Mayfield (666), Allen (599), Tagovailoa (537), Prescott (510), then Love (422). While complete junior-season numbers aren’t readily available on Flacco, Stafford, and Hurts, we do know that Stafford threw more than 300 passes in his senior season alone, and Hurts threw for more than 4,900 yards across those two years.
Pinning down a specific statistical threshold can be tricky in linking high school quarterback numbers to a meaningful scouting takeaway, but just for context: I was able to dig up senior-season yardage for 11 of these 12 quarterbacks (excluding Flacco), and all 11 of them threw for at least 2,100 yards. Of those 10, seven threw for 3,300 yards or more, led by Mahomes’ astronomical 4,597 yards in 13 games.
Note: For context, a couple of recent outliers relative to high-volume production and high-round NFL Draft success are Kenny Pickett and Trey Lance. Neither eclipsed 1,400 passing yards as a high school senior. Pickett, who threw nine TD passes as a senior, started three years of varsity ball, but fell just shy of 4,700 career yards. Lance was a two-way starter and basketball player, but his pass attempts were limited, relative to QBs such as Mahomes, Stroud, Rudolph, etc.’
TAKING CARE OF THE BALL
One number the 247Sports national scouting team likes to calculate for quarterbacks is INT rate – a ratio representing one interception for every x-number of throws. Generally speaking, quarterbacks want to be north of 1-in-30.0. Then as you climb, 1-in-40.0 is good, while anything higher than 1-in-50.0 is very good.
Based on available junior-senior stats from eight of these quarterbacks, six of the eight eclipsed that desired 1-in-40.0 threshold, led by Mayfield, who threw only eight interceptions in 666 passing attempts across his final two years at Lake Travis – that’s a sterling INT rate of 1-in-83.3.
Next are Rudolph (1-in-65.7), Mahomes (1-in-60.8), Tua (1-in-53.7), Stroud (1-in-50.3), and Goff (1-in-41.7). Allen fell right at the threshold with 1-in-39.3, while Love had the worst junior-senior INT rate at 1-in-26.4, though it’s worth noting Love was an 800-yard rusher and 2,100-yard passer as a senior.
A more recent elite high school prospect with a notable INT rate? Take Top247 five-star Jackson Arnold in the 2023 class. His junior-senior stats revealed only eight INTs in 807 attempts – an outstanding rate of 1-in-100.9 throws.
MOBILITY
I’ve found senior-season rushing stats for 10 of these 12 quarterbacks, and eight of the 10 ran for at least 400 yards or more in their final high school campaign. Hurts ran for 1,391 yards as a senior, when he scored almost as many rushing TDs (25) as he threw (26). Prescott and Mahomes each cleared 900 rushing yards, while Love eclipsed 800.
Mayfield and Stroud were held to fewer than 300 senior rushing yards, but in Mayfield’s case, his junior year (754) revealed a more accurate measure of the mobility he used in college to devastate opposing defenses.
Mobility as a high school quarterback does not guarantee the same playmaking ability in college or the pros, by any means. But being able to make plays with your legs regularly shows up in the high school profiles of QBs who later achieve NFL Draft candidacy and/or pro success.
SIZE
Tracking down verified measurements on high school prospects even today can be difficult, much less going back into the 2010s and 2000s. But piecing together old listed numbers, comparing them to verified NFL Combine numbers, and combining that context with in-person exposure to some of these QBs as prep prospects, I’m confident in saying 9 of 12 were 6-foot-2 or taller as high school seniors. All 12 were considered to be at least 6 feet; Tagovailoa measured 6-1 at the All-American Bowl as a senior, though his combine measurement was 6 feet.
Why point out this seemingly obvious commonality that 12 wildcard starters aren’t short? Today’s conversation around QB prospects in the high school ranks sometimes seems to disregard size because of the success of an elite few, headlined by Kyler Murray and Bryce Young. Well, Murray and Young are the only two quarterbacks shorter than 6 feet drafted in the past eight years – that’s 2 of 95 QB draft picks shorter than 6 feet since 2016.
