Which Celtics player would be the best football player? The team weighs in with Chris Forsberg
If you drop in on a random Boston Celtics practice, you might occasionally find players tossing around a football. They even brought a pigskin to Abu Dhabi, where big man Kristaps Porzingis showed off his arm before Boston's preseason game last October.
That got our Celtics Insider Chris Forsberg thinking: Which member of the Celtics would make the best football player? Would it be a super-athlete like All-Star Jaylen Brown? An athletic defender like Jrue Holiday or Jaden Springer? Or how about Baylor Scheierman or Xavier Tillman Sr., who both actually played high school football?
Forsberg posed that question to Celtics players -- as well as head coach Joe Mazzulla and president of basketball operations Brad Stevens -- during 2024 Media Day in September, and with the NFL's Super Bowl on the near horizon, it's time to reveal their selections.
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Here's a sampling of their answers -- which you can watch in full in the video player above -- followed by the final vote tally:
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Stevens: "Holiday or Springer. They would both fly to the ball and they both have incredible instincts, but the athleticism and strength and power is pretty special."
Al Horford: "I heard (Scheierman) played. I heard he was a quarterback, so I've got to see some of the highlights. I'm not fully sold on him, but he looks like he could have been nice, so I'm gonna go with him."
Scheierman: "We won a state championship my senior year. I had like 4,000 passing yards (and) 67 touchdowns my senior year. Broke like 15 state records."
Editor's Note: Scheierman indeed was an elite high school quarterback and was recruited by the University of Nebraska before turning his attention to basketball.
Derrick White: "Probably Baylor. He's the best quarterback."
Payton Pritchard: "Baylor I could see being good, but he played at probably a small school, so his numbers were inflated a little bit."
Sam Hauser: "Jaden Springer. You put him in press coverage on a wideout, it's gonna be tough to go around the guy."
Neemias Queta: "I feel like the best body in the team for a football player has to be JB (Jaylen Brown), for sure."
Mazzulla: "I think Jaden Springer. I think he'd be a great DB."
White: "(Springer) is just a rock. Can't move him. (Would) probably be a really good cornerback."
Tillman: "Definitely me at tight end or defensive end. I have the body for it for sure. My hands are good. I just actually watched a highlight video of my freshman year. I've got it on HUDL if you want to see it: 'XT All the Way.'"
Editor's Note: Yes, these highlights exist.
Luke Kornet: "Jaden Springer would be a monster. You don't see a lot of 6-foot-5-plus football players, so realistically they're probably not -- I'd like to change my answer to Springer."
Springer was the eventual winner here, earning seven total votes to Scheierman's four and Holiday's three. (Brown, Pritchard and Tillman each received two votes.) That's quite the upset, as Springer admitted to Forsberg he didn't even play football in high school.
Editor's Note: Scheierman was robbed.
Tune into Celtics PostUp with Forsberg and Kayla Burton on Friday night following Celtics Postgame Live for more on the Celtics' football aspirations.