The first round of the 2024 NFL Draft is in the books. With the event serving as a compass for the 247Sports’ player rankings, we are always studying the players selected and trying to identify the latest trends at the game’s highest level. Below, we connect some dots with the first 32 selections.
MULTI-SPORT PROFILES REMIAN KING
Of the 32 first-round selections, 28 of them played at least one other sport at some point in high school in addition to football. Our research also shows that there were seven three-sport athletes and a confirmed four-sport ironman in Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. (basketball, baseball and track).
Basketball (19 players) was by far the main crossover sport, which aligns with the data from the 2023 NFL Draft where just over 100 of the picks played at least one season of prep basketball. Track and field (14 players) was also very popular. So were what we’re calling the ‘exotic’ sports.
Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy played hockey throughout his youth and even has an old Elite Prospects profile.
Laiatu Latu has always had a love for rugby after winning a pair of national titles in high school and had an opportunity to play the sport professionally before he joined UCLA’s football team after getting medically disqualified at Washington.
The big-framed Troy Fautanu was a skilled volleyball player with a mean spike long before he suited up for the Huskies and protected Penix.
Graham Barton, on the other hand, ran up and down lacrosse fields before signing to play along the offensive line at Duke.
Multi-sport profiles certainly aren’t the end all be all when it comes to the evaluation process, but it remains a key indicator of potential success.
LATE BLOOMERS APLENTY
The first three offensive tackles selected Thursday didn’t start playing on the offensive line until they were much older.
Notre Dame’s Joe Alt was a quarterback as a freshman, a linebacker as a sophomore and a tight end as a junior before he eventually got a look on the corner as a senior.
Alabama’s JC Latham initially billed himself as a defensive lineman before transferring into IMG Academy ahead of his junior season and buying into the idea of being a pass protector.
Penn State’s Olu Fashanu was focused on basketball growing up and didn’t put on shoulder pads until he was a freshman where he spent his first year with the junior varsity squad.
Those three weren’t the only late bloomers.
LSU wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. was being recruited by Houston and others to play college basketball before he gave football a try for the first time as a sophomore. He caught four passes for 278 yards and three touchdowns in his first varsity game.
Darius Robinson didn’t get football a try until his junior year after playing basketball his first two years at a school that didn’t offer football. The pass rusher out of Missouri also made a major physical transformation going from 249 pounds in May of 2019 to 285 pounds at this year’s Scouting Combine.
Tyler Guyton was another hooper. He didn’t find the game of football until he was a senior and started off on the defensive line before making the transition to offensive tackle at TCU and then transferring to Oklahoma.
THREE-PHASERS MATTER!
Two-way snaps have long been valued in scouting circles, but prospects that can make an impact in all three phases of the game are more important.
Of the 13 non offensive/defensive linemen, pass rushers and quarterbacks that went in the first round, eight of them scored via the return game in high school, a few multiple times.
WR Rome Odunze (Washington) – 2 punts as a senior, 1 as junior
WR Malik Nabers (LSU) – 2 kickoffs as junior
WR Xavier Worthy (Texas) – 2 kickoffs as junior
WR Rick Pearsall (Florida) – 2 kickoffs as senior
TE Brock Bowers (Georgia) – 1 kickoff as a junior
CB Quinyon Mitchell (Toledo) – 1 kickoff as a junior
CB Nate Wiggins (Clemson) – 1 kickoff as a senior
CB Terrion Arnold (Alabama) – 1 punt as senior
The aforementioned Latu was also a difference-maker on special teams, blocking a pair of punts as an 11th grader.
In total, off the 26 non-quarterbacks taken Thursday, 15 of them got ample snaps on the other side of the ball while in high school with the nine listed above also contributing in an area that can often be overlooked.
MORE TAKEAWAYS
-Three of the top five picks had a father that played in the NFL. Everyone obviously knows that Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. has a gold jacket in his bold, but Alt and North quarterback Drake Maye also have favorable bloodlines.
Atl’s father was a first-round pick by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1984 after a stellar career at Iowa. He started 149 games on the offensive line, making two Pro Bowls. May’s father, Mark, spent some time with the Tampa Bay Bucs in 1988. He was a two-year starter at quarterback for the Tar Heels.
-Wide receivers were in high demand with seven coming off the board. The only one that didn’t measure over six feet at the NFL Scouting Combine was former Texas star Xavier Worthy (5-foot-11), who ran a record-breaking time of 4.21 seconds in the 40-yard dash.
Four of the seven wide receivers selected weighed over 205 pounds in Indianapolis: Harrison (209), Odunze (212), Thomas (209) and South Carolina’s Xavier Legette (221).
Conversely, all three corners picked measured over 5-foot-11. That’s after 22 of the 36 corners drafted in 2023 came in at over six feet.
-Florida and California tied for the states to produce the most first-round picks at four apiece. The Sunshine State technically had six, but McCarthy left Illinois to play his senior season at IMG Academy because of the global pandemic, and Latham (who protected McCarthy’s blind side) is originally from Wisconsin.
IMG Academy and Washington (D.C.) Gonzaga was the only two high school with two selections on Day 1 as USC quarterback Caleb Williams and Fashanu both played for the latter.
