2017 AFC Championship starters: The Steelers and Patriots as recruits

Pittsburgh Steelers. New England Patriots. What a rare opportunity it would be to one of these teams in the Super Bowl ...

... or not.

These teams have been here before, and they’ll likely be here again as long as Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady have anything to say about it. What we’re here to talk about though is how these starters were rated as recruits. And that means stars. Players are rated between two- and five-stars.

There is a common refrain that stars don’t matter. That refrain is incorrect. Star ratings are a reliable predictor of which team will win the national championship at the college level. And they are a good indicator of a player’s chance of getting drafted. They aren’t a predictor of NFL team success, obviously, but they’re a frame of reference for how well regarded the talent once was, and what their NFL teams have been able to maximize with more refined coaching and more practice time.

There are often more three-star players at this level because there are just simply more three-star players in the sport. The math of it gives three-stars a better chance at making NFL rosters than four - or four-star players (or blue chips).

Each year, roughly 4,500 football players sign Division I scholarships. In 2010, the year from which most of the prospects in the 2014 draft came, 27 were rated as five-stars by Rivals.com. Five-stars are considered no-doubt, superstar-type players. There were 395 four-stars, a designation for very good players, and 1,644 three-stars, or good players. And 2,434 were rated as two-stars or not rated at all, meaning they are at the lowest levels of FBS (85-scholarship level) or FCS players (63-scholarship level).

So let’s take a look at each roster to see how things shake out. We’ve even got some fun facts thrown in for good measure to add some context to the facemasks you’ll see playing shield ball this Sunday, should you be so inclined to watch. We used the 247 Composite, which is a ranking that rolls all big recruiting services into one digestible ranking.

The Steelers sport six four-stars, and you’d be tempted to say Ben Roethlisberger could have been a seventh if he didn’t play in the era before recruiting rankings were as mainstream as they are now. Same for wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey.

To put things in perspective, 27 percent of the Steelers’ starters were rated four-stars. Only nine percent of Division I signees were rated four-stars.

The Patriots may surprise you with two 5-stars, and two 4-stars. Not just a bunch of nameless faceless guys. Belichick & Co. are incredible at finding diamonds in the rough. But when they need to, they’ll obviously go with the best of the best.

18 percent of New England’s starters were four or five-stars, yet only 10 percent of all Division I signees are rated that highly on a yearly basis.