What makes a successful quarterback?

It is probably the most-asked question surrounding the NFL, and the answer is becoming more difficult to attain it seems. As the pro and collegiate games evolve in different directions, fewer quarterbacks are able to make the jump successfully. It’s the reason teams clamor and claw for the right to draft players such as Jared Goff and Carson Wentz; both projected to be nowhere near ready to take the reigns to start the season. It’s the reason Los Angeles and Philadelphia mortgaged their futures to get them, and most pundits agree they were right to do so.

It’s the reason the Cowboys called every team between picks 16 and 26 to try and get back in the first round to grab Paxton Lynch and sit him behind Tony Romo for three to four seasons to develop. So rare is the franchise quarterback, teams will generally select any prospect with promising traits by the 40th overall pick and almost always before the second round ends. Rare is the Russell Wilson, Tom Brady or Romo; a player who ascends despite the league collectively thinking those guys weren’t worthy. Almost every stone is uncovered, all potential is considered.

There were 15 quarterbacks selected in the 2016 draft, a high number compared to the average of 11 over the previous five drafts. It followed just seven selected in 2015, 14 in 2014, 11 in ’13, 11 in 2012 and 12 in 2011.

How those 15 quarterbacks, from various parts of the country, fell into the same patterns of upbringing was pretty remarkable. MMQB’s Robert Klemko dove in-depth into each draftee’s background and found various intriguing similarities.

MMQB's Robert Klemko goes deep into the similarities among the 15 drafted QBs of 2016. https://t.co/lAtNXesd6f — K.D. Drummond (@KDDrummondNFL) May 12, 2016

Following that introductory video, Klemko submersed himself in the worlds of the young quarterbacks.

Similarities

Here are the key points that Klemko found similar; from Goff to Wentz to Cook to Lynch to Prescott and beyond.

After consulting with experts in the field of training and evaluating quarterbacks, and after interviewing more than two dozen parents and coaches of these newly minted NFL passers, we identified several key life experiences that appear to be predictors of success: • 13 of the 15 quarterbacks grew up in homes that were valued near or above the median home value in their respective state, according to public records and online real estate figures. Seven families lived in homes that were more than double the median values: Goff, Hackenberg, Carson Wentz, Connor Cook, Jeff Driskel, Kevin Hogan and Jake Rudock. • 13 of the 15 quarterbacks in the 2016 draft spent their early childhoods in two-parent homes. (Of note, a majority of the 30 parents hold four-year college degrees.) • On average, the 15 quarterbacks taken in the 2016 draft began playing the position at age 9, with only two having taken up the position in high school. • At some point before high school graduation, with many paying significant fees or traveling great distances to do so, 12 of the 15 received varying degrees of individual instruction from a QB coach who was not a parent or a team-affiliated coach; 12 of the quarterbacks also participated in offseason 7-on-7 football during their high school careers.

PRESCOTT’S FIT

The high school coach of Dak Prescott, the fourth-round selection of the Cowboys, described the quarterback’s single mother as having been “very involved” in Dak’s career despite raising three children on her own. “She knew football,” Haughton High (La.) coach Rodney Gion says of Peggy Prescott, who died in 2013 after battling colon cancer. “She would question us quite often on stuff. I can just remember seeing her in the store one day, and she said, ‘I don’t know about that offensive coordinator. That Cajun don’t know what he’s doing.’ She was phenomenal—the kind of woman you’d want on your side in a fight.”

Prescott most certainly does not fit the income profile of the other quarterbacks. He grew up in a trailer park in Princeton, LA.

“There were some hard times, no doubt about it,” Dak told Yahoo Sports last week during an interview at the Mississippi State football complex. “But we had a great upbringing. We knew exactly right from wrong.” The Prescott boys grew up playing football, and most of the kids in the neighborhood were the age of Dak’s older brothers. He tagged along and played right with them. Brother Jace taught Dak how to throw a football, but none of the boys took it easy on the little guy. “There were not many people my age,” he said. “I played football with my brothers, and it wasn’t touch football. It was tackle.”

Prescott’s mother’s influence, however, certainly registers as a positive.

“My mom spoiled me a little bit because I was youngest,” Dak admitted with a smile. “With a little bit of whining, I could get something – but not for nothing. Usually as a pat on the back for hard work.” Peggy was a football fan whose voice could be heard from the stands at youth-league games, and she offered some unsparing critiques to her kids when they did not play well. But she also was protective. When recruiters came to visit Dak at Haughton High School or at home, she cut through all the flattery to ask one standard question: “Why should I let my 17-year-old son go to your school?”

If NFL teams truly are using the traits above to value some quarterbacks over others, it’s no wonder Prescott fell to a compensatory pick after the fourth round. He admits to “not knowing the difference between Cover 3 and man” after high school, something the 12 out of 15 QBs who attended summer camps and received individual coaching surely would have mastered prior to entering college ball.

His road traveled was certainly a bumpy one. If it fortified his work ethic and drives his competitive fire, the lack of what others consider to be indicators of success could be what lifts him to success. It could have been what appealed most to the Cowboys front office and staff.