2024 NFL draft: Jeff Legwold ranks the top 100 prospects - ESPN

As talent evaluators powered through their prep for the 2024 NFL draft, not one said the quarterback class was so good, so deep, it could come off the board like almost no other before it.

Yet, five days before the draft kicks off, the mock drafts, rumor mill and desperation level at the position has brought the potential — again — for history.

If five quarterbacks are selected among the top 12 picks this year, it will be just the second time since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 (1999 was the other). And if four quarterbacks are selected this year among the top 12 picks, it will be just the fifth time since the merger.

But that's been a fairly recent shift in the league's approach to the board. Of the four times four quarterbacks have been taken among the top 12 picks, two of those have happened in the previous six drafts, and three in the previous 13 drafts.

Suddenly the league wants to take a shot on quarterbacks as much as every fan who is desperate for an elite signal-caller would like them to. And that will be the biggest storyline Thursday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN, ABC, ESPN App).

With that in mind, we present a top 100 based on grades, not position. This isn't a mock draft, but the top 100 players ranked, regardless of position.

Thanks to all who took the time to chat, answer piles of questions and put up with this annual project, including some who have put up with it for well over three decades.

Note: Best verified or electronically timed 40-yard dash time in parentheses.

1. Marvin Harrison Jr., WR, Ohio State, 6-foot-3¼, 209 pounds (DNR)

Harrison is the first two-time All-American wide receiver in Ohio State history and first two-time unanimous All-America wide receiver in the Big Ten in almost three decades. He has