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Why basketball keeps showing up in the backgrounds of elite quarterbacks

charles power hsby: Charles Power02/05/26CharlesPower

There is no single path to becoming a top quarterback, yet a surprising number of the best signal callers in the NFL and college football share a common developmental thread: a basketball background.

Study of the backgrounds of top NFL quarterbacks reveals factors like physical tools, high school production, and multi-sport experience to be the primary commonalities among the group. Upon close inspection, the multi-sport background is less about simple participation or shallow variety, but more about one sport showing up again and again.

Basketball experience is a clear developmental through line for many of the top quarterbacks in the NFL and college football, including many of this season’s breakout stars. Given what we’ve seen, basketball is the most transferable secondary sport for the position, offering skill development that is tough to replicate outside of in-game quarterbacking reps.

Here’s how and why basketball experience has quietly shaped many of football’s top passers.

From high-level basketball players to franchise quarterbacks

Drake Maye is the NFL’s breakout player from the 2025-2026 season. In just his second NFL season, he’s led the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl and one is of the favorites for NFL MVP. Maye, who was the third quarterback taken in the 2024 NFL Draft looks like a bona fide and nearly fully-formed star very early in his pro career. He’s an accurate, instinctive passer with an ability to process and make reactive plays that belies his pro experience.

Coming out of high school, Maye was a top 50 prospect, per the Rivals Industry Ranking. He was the most efficient passer in the 2021 cycle, completing 72.4% of his passes for 3,512 yards at a gaudy 12.1 yards per attempt for 50 touchdowns against two interceptions as a junior at Charlotte (N.C.) Myers Park. Maye was also a star basketball player, averaging 16.1 points per game and 11.3 rebounds as a junior and drawing legitimate high-major attention on the hardwood.

Back in the winter of 2019, former Alabama head coach Nick Saban and then Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian made news when they showed up in Myers Park’s gymnasium to watch one of Maye’s basketball games. Maye, who was committed to Alabama at the time before ultimately flipping to North Carolina, left a lasting impression on the legendary head coach.

“Drake Maye was one of those guys that really impressed me by the way he played basketball,” said Saban while appearing on the Pat McAfee Show last fall. “He probably could have played basketball at North Carolina, too.”

Maye’s high school basketball film backs up Saban’s sentiment. The 6-foot-4 forward was a skilled jump-shooter with outstanding court vision.

The list of high school basketball stars-turned franchise quarterbacks starts, but does not end with Drake Maye.

Maye’s quarterback counterpart in Super Bowl LX, Sam Darnold, was also a high-level basketball player with college ability on the hardwood. Darnold was a two-time league MVP and all-CIF basketball player at San Clemente (Calif.) High. Both Darnold and his high school basketball coach Mark Popovich saw significant crossover between his football and basketball skills.

“I think being a quarterback complemented his basketball abilities, and vice versa,” Popovich told the LA Times in 2016. “He was the only guy I’ve ever had who could get a defensive rebound and launch a 70-foot pass on target, pretty much in the same motion, to a guy breaking out in the fast break. It was almost Wes Unseld-like.”

In addition to Maye and Darnold, at least four more NFL starters were considered mid to high mid-major talents on the court, at the minimum.

Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Jordan Love, and C.J. Stroud are three more NFL starters with high school basketball backgrounds. Allen and Herbert were three sport athletes in football, basketball, and baseball. Stroud was a clean jump-shooter and the second leading scorer on a state semi-finalist team at Rancho Cucamonga (Calif.) High, notably hitting a buzzer beater in a playoff game against Miami Heat forward Jaime Jacquez.

While not every top quarterback was a standout basketball player, a disproportionate number were serious players on the hardwood with legitimate college potential in multiple sports.

The pattern continues in college football

Despite increasing specialization among quarterback prospects, former basketball players are still rising to the top of college football.

Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss was one of the breakout stars of the college football season. The transfer from Division II program Ferris State led the Rebels to the College Football Playoff and the best season in program history after beginning the year as a backup. He became a true household name during Ole Miss’ quarterfinal win over Georgia, with a now famous three-play sequence of improvisational wizardry. His heroics in the CFP semifinal against Miami nearly resulted in an Ole Miss win.

As a recruit, Chambliss was an undersized, under-the-radar prospect out of Grand Rapids (Mich.) Forest Hills Northern in the 2021 cycle with zero FBS offers. It was on the basketball court, not the gridiron, where he caught the eye of Ferris State head coach Tony Annese. After watching the all-state point guard play, Annese opted to make a full-court press.

“His vision, his instincts, his ability to see the court, it was all so very impressive,” Annese told the Detroit News.

After a few years developing at Ferris State, Chambliss exploded as a junior, totaling 3,944 yards and 51 touchdowns while leading the Bulldogs to an undefeated season and national title. His waiver for sixth year of eligibility was denied by the NCAA, but could be challenged in court. Chambliss projects as an NFL Draft pick, regardless.

Texas quarterback Arch Manning will be the preseason favorite to be the No. 1 overall selection in the 2027 NFL Draft. Manning, who was a Five-Star Plus+ prospect in the 2023 cycle, made waves by eschewing the offseason camp and 7-on-7 circuit, instead playing basketball and running track for New Orleans Isidore Newman.

LSU transfer Sam Leavitt, On3’s top-ranked quarterback in the Transfer Portal, is another notable college football signal caller with a basketball background. A late rankings riser in the 2023 cycle, Leavitt was a starter on a nationally-ranked basketball team at Portland West Linn.

How basketball translates to quarterback play

The high incidence of basketball backgrounds among top quarterbacks isn’t mere coincidence and has more substance than simply “checking the multi-sport box.” There is real transfer from sport-to-sport with basketball experience helping to build a breadth of skill that can serve as a strong foundation for future development as a quarterback.

Spatial awareness and reactive processing
Quarterback is the most cerebral position in sports. Signal callers make hundreds making split-second decisions before and after the snap each game. The same can be said for ball handlers in basketball.

Court mapping, the ability to understand the location and track the movement of all ten players on a basketball court, is a highly transferrable skill to playing quarterback. Seeing the whole field and not just one isolated matchup is key for high-level quarterbacks. Basketball also provides repetitions of reading defender leverage and anticipating passing windows before they open – two more critical quarterback skills.

Last fall, Drake Maye’s former high school basketball coach Scott Taylor said he still marvels at how well Maye could read the court. “As much as his ability to make shots, and make tough shots, I still think about his flow of the spacing and the understanding of the game,” Taylor told NBCSports Boston.

Basketball also presents the athlete with reactive processing repetitions. Think of this as the post-snap reads for a quarterback. The ball-handling aspects and flow of basketball calls for quick reactions under pressure – a skill that is necessary to play quarterback at a high level.

Shooting: repeatable mechanics, body control, and depth perception
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of these top quarterbacks were strong shooters as basketball players. Jump shooting hones several skills that transfer to quarterback play.

The experience developing shooting form in basketball makes for easier skill acquisition as a football passer. Similar to throwing a football, shooting a basketball with consistency calls for the ability to establish repeatable mechanics. Developing muscle memory via thousands of reps in basketball makes for easier transfer when refining football-specific throwing mechanics.

Additionally, jump shooting builds rhythm and sequencing between the upper and lower body. The ability to stay balanced and get shots off from different angles translates making off-platform throws. Finishing through contact on the basketball court is perhaps the closest cross-sport replication of a quarterback taking a hit while throwing a pass.

High level basketball players rely on developed depth perception to judge trajectory and how much force or touch is needed on each shot. Quarterbacks make the same types of visual judgements to throw accurate passes.

Reactive athleticism
The ability to pick up yards as a scrambler has never been more valuable in college football or the NFL. The short area burst and explosion required in basketball helps foster movement skills that aid in escapability and scrambling, along with the instantaneous reads and decisions needed as a ball-handler in basketball and scrambler on the gridiron. 

Competitiveness
At its core, quarterbacking is a performance craft. With less games, football provides fewer truly competitive opportunities than most sports. Basketball offers a setting for quarterbacks to hone realtime problem solving against live opponents. It’s an open, free flowing environment that is more akin to a real football game than controlled, closed training sessions that call for choreographed movements. Playing in a crowded high school gymnasium is more of a performance test than throwing on air and repeating drills. With only about a dozen true football games per season, basketball provides quarterbacks with one of the few high-intensity, real competitive contexts where skills can be refined in the face of pressure.

Why basketball often supercharges later football growth

The benefits of a quarterback building a wide foundational breadth of skill with help from basketball are often revealed in later stage growth as opposed to immediate returns.

My first in-person exposure to Drake Maye came in the spring of 2019 The Opening Regional in Charlotte. Maye was a rising junior with national offers coming out of his sophomore season. He did not stand out when going through drills alongside more polished and trained quarterbacks. Others threw tighter spirals and were more technically refined. Maye was better in throwing to receivers than in closed circuit drills. At the time, I noted how the camp setting played to the strengths of quarterbacks with specialized training, while Maye was developing through competition in multiple sports rather than year-around quarterback work. Following a sensational junior season, I saw Maye in-person again in February 2020 at a 7-on-7 tournament. He was stellar in the competitive setting and delivered what is still the best 7-on-7 performance I’ve seen from a high school quarterback prospect.

Many quarterback prospects with basketball-heavy backgrounds can appear undeveloped or rough around the edges early on before breaking out once their focus is narrowed to the gridiron.

Sam Darnold was not the highest-ranked quarterback prospect in USC’s 2015 recruiting class. A late riser, he committed to the Trojans over Duke and Utah one month before his senior season. Around seven months after taking the job at USC, Steve Sarkisian prioritized Darnold, adding him to a class with Ricky Town. Darnold did not have much varsity experience as a quarterback at the time of his commitment, working as a backup as a sophomore and missing a chunk of his junior season with an injury. With that said, Sarkisian preferred his upside, athleticism, and competitiveness over Town, who was a more polished, trained prospect and had been on the national radar for years. Sarkisian’s move proved fortuitous, as Darnold had a great senior season. He went on to win the starting job at USC and led the Trojans to a Rose Bowl win in his second year on campus. Town ended up spending time at Arkansas, Ventura College, and Pittsburgh, only attempting one pass at the FBS level.

While there were clear signs for Drake Maye and Sam Darnold in high school by way of hyper-productive final seasons, basketball experience has served as both a key builder of skill foundation and method of identifying more under-the-radar quarterbacks.

Before he was the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Cam Ward was an unproductive passer from a Wing-T high school offense with zero FBS offers. He threw for 948 yards and eight touchdowns with five interceptions as a senior at West Columbia (Texas) Columbia – production that pales in comparison to most FBS quarterback prospects. Then Incarnate Word head coach Eric Morris (now at Oklahoma State) saw enough flashes from Ward at a camp to be intrigued. As was the case with Tony Annese’s evaluation of Trinidad Chambliss, Morris admits it was Ward’s play in basketball, not football, that really got his attention.

Both Ward and Chambliss were able to bank meaningful in-game reps at the FCS level before transferring to Power 4 programs and taking off as top quarterbacks. The lower stakes experience along with the hands-on development under Tony Annese and Eric Morris allowed for stepping stone growth prior to their national breakouts. Everyone involved, both players and coaches, contend that basketball was critical to their development. Basketball helped build the breadth of skill that allowed for rapid acceleration once more high-level coaching and in-game reps were obtained in college.

The counterbalance to specialization

As quarterback development continues to trend towards earlier specialization with more private training and closed environments, prospects who are able to build vision, timing, and experience performing in pressurized settings will continue to have a leg up on the competition.

Private quarterback training can provide valuable time-on-task throwing reps, but it works best as a complement to, not a substitute for, the competitive skill building that ultimately defines quarterback performance. The backgrounds of players like Drake Maye, Sam Darnold, Cam Ward, and Trinidad Chambliss suggest that basketball remains one of the most effective environments for developing those skills that are otherwise difficult to build in a football off-season.

If long-term development is the goal rather than short-term polish, one of the best things you can do for a young quarterback is put him on the basketball court.