Are LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier and Clemson’s Cade Klubnik too short to be high first-round NFL Draft picks?

When we’re talking about top-of-the-draft franchise quarterbacks, how short is too short?

LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier is verified 6-foot 5/8, and against Clemson on Saturday he looked a lot like the player we saw early in the 2024 season, when the first-round momentum initially got going. His counterpart Cade Klubnik is verified 6-foot-1 1/2, and he looked out of sorts for much of the night in a game Clemson would lose, 17-10. I mention their heights because it’s where every conversation begins in the evaluation process, especially at the most important position on the field. 

Last week, my preseason Top 50 Big Board came out and Nussmeier was No. 11 and my QB2 (behind Arch Manning, assuming he declares for the 2026 draft), while Klubnik just missed the cut — he was No. 52 and QB5 behind Manning, Nussmeier, Fernando Mendoza and Drew Allar. 

Of the five names above, only Nussmeier and Klubnik are shorter than 6-foot-2. Since 2010, 50 quarterbacks have been drafted in the first round. Of those, only seven have been shorter than 6-foot-2: 

• Bryce Young, Kyler Murray: 5-foot-10 1/8 (at the combine)

• Johnny Manziel: 5-foot-11 3/4

• Tua Tagovailoa 6-foot-0

• Baker Mayfield: 6-foot-0 5/8

• Caleb Williams: 6-foot 1

• Cam Ward 6-foot-1 5/8

Of that group, Young, Murray, Williams, Mayfield, and Ward were No. 1 overall picks and the results have been mixed. 

Young was benched just 18 games into his professional career – and two games into the 2024 season, after completing 56% of his throws without a touchdown, 3 interceptions and 6 sacks in losses to the Saints and Chargers. 

At the time, it appeared that Young had played his last game for the Panthers. But five weeks later, Andy Dalton was injured in a car accident, Young got another opportunity and he made the most of it. He started every game between Weeks 8-18 and over that span he completed 62 percent of his passes with 15 TDs, 6 INTs, and the Panthers went 4-6 (and they very easily could have been 5-5 had Xavier Legette not dropped a 4th quarter touchdown against the Eagles in Week 14). He’s entrenched as the starter heading into Year 3 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it all comes together for him and Carolina’s offense in 2025.

Murray did win Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2019, and his physical gifts — outside of his height — are why he was selected first overall. But he has been plagued by suspect decision making and inconsistency, especially in big moments. And, fair or not, “late-season collapse” has been a phrase associated with this team for as long as Murray has been there.

Williams struggled in Year 1 in Chicago — and there’s plenty of blame to go around, whether it was too much hero ball, hiring the wrong guy in offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, or the lack of accountability that eventually led to coach Matt Eberflus getting fired after the season. Ben Johnson is now the coach and the expectation is that Williams will take a Jared Goff-type leap from inconsistent young QB to elite top-level passer.

Mayfield went from walk-on to No. 1 over the course of his Oklahoma journey, in part because he showed off a huge arm, was incredibly accurate, and though he may have rubbed opponents and detractors the wrong way, he was a locker room leader who had buy-in from his teammates. He flashed some of that talent in Cleveland, though it’s fair to say it wasn’t fully realized until several stops later in Tampa Bay, when team and player were the perfect fit. Now, Mayfield is one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and perhaps that’s the story, more than lack of height or arm strength  that we all fall in love with, sometimes at our own peril: fit matters. 

I reached out to some folks in the league to see if they were buying my “fit matters” theory when it comes to Nussmeier and Klubnik. And while both might be short by NFL quarterback standards, they are also two completely different types of passers. 

So let’s start there.

I’ve talked about this frequently over the last 12 months on “With the First Pick,” the podcast I co-host with former Titans GM Ran Carthon, but there’s a lot to like in Nussmeier’s game. He’s a coach’s son (his dad, Doug, played in the NFL and is currently the Saints offensive coordinator), and is one of the best QBs in this class at getting through his reads, playing on time, throwing with anticipation and understanding what the defense is trying to do both before and after the snap. He gets into trouble, however, when he tries to do too much, and we saw a lot of that over the second half of the 2024 season, when poor decisions invariably led to turnovers. 

In addition to his height, he isn’t particularly athletic (though he can run if he has to). Which means everything has to be pretty close to flawless for him to operate at peak efficiency (where, say, Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson can win without their arms because they’re routinely the best athletes on the field.)

Klubnik, meanwhile, improved as the 2024 season progressed; he got off to a slow start vs. Georgia in the opener and looked a lot like a first-round pick in the playoff loss to Texas. He’s incredibly tough (and that was on full display in the ’25 opener vs. LSU), is a top-end athlete who can win with his legs, and he can play on time and with good touch on second-level layered throws.  He also improved as a deep-ball passer though he needs to continue to improve on anticipatory throws and getting through his reads (but again, I can say that about 95% of all draft-eligible QBs). Also, when you talk to people at Clemson, they rave about Klubnik’s work ethic, how he carries himself and how he treats others.

One league evaluator told me he’s liked Nussmeier going back to last season, though he thought it was smart that he returned to LSU for 2025. When I asked him if he was at all concerned about Nuss standing just  6-foot 1/2, he said, “Yeah, that bothers me a little bit, for sure.” 

Another league evaluator, who isn’t as high on Nussmeier as others, admits that he would be scared to take him at the top of the draft because although he’s high-level processor, there’s not one athletic trait that stands out — something he can lean on when nothing else is going his way (again, see Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson).

It’s why there were caveats with Murry as a No. 1 pick — yes, he was short, but he had a big arm and had high-end athleticism. Baker also had a big arm, accuracy and was a natural leader. Young, however, was as close to a leap of faith as you’ll see for a top pick at that position. As one scout told me ahead of the 2023 draft: “How many NFL quarterbacks look like Bryce Young?”

And I get the trepidation, whether it’s with Nuss, Klubnik or previously Young. History tells us that hitting on any quarterback in the first round is incredibly difficult, and once you start limiting the parameters (in this case, to players under 6-foot-2), the task gets eminently more difficult. 

But a third league evaluator told me he doesn’t care about any height concerns with Nussmeier or Klubnik. “I want a quarterback that knows where to go with the ball and throws it.” 

That sounds a lot like Nussmeier, and to a lesser degree, Klubnik, who has improved in that area. This evaluator likes both quarterbacks and thinks both get pushed into Round 1 by next spring. He also reminded me that this is why the Browns were so high on Dillon Gabriel and took him in the third round even though he was just 5-foot-11. And while it’s too early to have any lasting judgements, Gabriel looked the part in preseason. 

The evaluator also brought up Drew Brees, who was a second-round pick because he was 6-foot on a good day and had average arm strength. And like Nuss, he was a pocket passer. Also like Nuss, Brees consistently knew where to go with the ball and he became one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, he’s a future Hall of Famer who is No. 3 all-time in completion percentage (67.7%) behind only Joe Burrow (former No. 1 overall pick) and Tagovailoa.

Tagovailoa, it’s worth mentioning, was taken fifth overall in 2020, four picks after Burrow. He’s also just 6-foot though you wouldn’t know it to watch him run Mike McDaniel’s offense. Because when it’s clicking, there is no one better suited to play in that system — the ball consistently comes out on time and few people on the planet throw with the anticipation we’ve seen from Tagovailoa. And, yes, the knocks on him coming out of Alabama had to do with his size and arm strength. He was also coming off a serious hip injury that prematurely ended his last college season, and in the NFL, concussions have kept him off the field. And it’s fair to point this out — maybe smaller players are more inclined to get hurt, but Anthony Richardson, Trevor Lawrence and Justin Herbert are all at least 6-foot-4, and all have missed NFL games because of injury.

You’ll also hear a lot about “shorter quarterbacks are more likely to have balls knocked down at the line of scrimmage,” and inherently, that makes sense. But according to PFF, in 2024, rookie Bo Nix (6-foot-2) led the league in batted passes, followed by Kirk Cousins (6-foot-3), Cooper Rush (6-foot-3), Geno Smith (6-foot-2), Caleb Williams (6-foot-1), Lamar Jackson (6-foot-2 1/4), Jayden Daniels (6-foot-3 5/8) and then Mayfield.

If you’re wondering: Kyler Murray tied for ninth in batted passes along with Jameis Winston (6-foot-4), Justin Herbert (6-foot-6) and Matthew Stafford (6-foot-2). Young, who played in 14 games, ranked 39th, tied with Trevor Lawrence (6-foot-5 5/8).

Which brings us back to this: “I want a quarterback that knows where to go with the ball and throws it.” I’ve talked a lot on the podcast — and written a good bit about it, too — but we can be guilty of falling in love with measurables so much so that it obscures the entire point of the exercise: finding good football players whose skills translate from one level to the next. 

It’s why Brock Purdy was Mr. Irrelevant, it’s why Kirk Cousins was a fourth-round pick, taken 100 players after Washington took Robert Griffin III, who had unlimited — and mostly untapped — potential. 

In fact, when we look at the 142 quarterbacks drafted from 2010-2024, and then zoom to the top-15 most productive passers (as measured by PFR’s AV metric, this is what we see: Russell Wilson tops the list, followed by Cam Newton, Cousins and Patrick Mahomes. Rounding out the top 15? Mayfield, Murray and Jalen Hurts, who is 6-foot-1. 

(Note: career AV is a cumulative measure, so the longer you play, the higher your AV value will be; in that sense it’s not a perfect measure, nor was it intended to be for our purposes here. Instead, I just wanted to shed light on the fact that recent history is littered with QBs who might not be 6-foot-5, and in many cases aren’t even 6-foot-2.)

Perhaps further proof that the NFL is coming around on this idea — whether actively or subconsciously: just look at the 2025 QB draft class. Of the 13 quarterbacks drafted, seven were 6-foot-2 or shorter, including the first-overall pick, the No. 25 pick (Jaxson Dart), third-rounders Jalen Milroe and Gabriel, and Day 3 selections Shedeur Sanders, Cam Miller and Quinn Ewers. 

Expect this to continue — and even accelerate — if Nussmeier and Klubnik have the seasons we’re all expecting. Because Anthony Richardson seems like a great idea in theory, but he’s also a cautionary tale.