NFL executive hints not to sleep on this underrated 2024 QB prospect

The 2024 NFL Draft is top-heavy at the quarterback position, with as many as six signal callers potentially slated to be picked in the first round.

While USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels are expected to selected inside the top five, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon’s Bo Nix all have an outside chance of being drafted between picks 10 and 32.

While those players have been the consensus six-best QB prospects for much of the 2023 college football season, it appears there’s an under-the-radar passer who some scouts and executives are surprisingly high on heading into the 2024 NFL Combine.

“My hot take is that Spencer Rattler is better than Bo Nix and Penix,” an anonymous NFL executive told SI.com’s Albert Breer. “And I know other people who feel the same way.”

Rattler is the No. 7-ranked quarterback in the 2024 class both ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. and The Athletic’s Dane Brugler, who ranked Rattler as the No. 88 overall prospect in the draft.

The 23-year-old had a solid senior season at South Carolina in 2023, completing 68.9 percent of his passes for 3,186 yards, 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions while rushing for 104 yards and four additional touchdowns.

A standout performer at the Reese’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama in January, Rattler earned the game’s MVP award after completing all four of his passes for 65 yards and a touchdown — a 29-yarder to Georgia’s Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint that gave the American Team a 7-0 lead.