10 Most Dazzling High School Highlight Vids of Today's NFL Stars

As is always the case at the close of an NFL season, we can look back and recall some of the great highlights from the games.

Tebow trucking Jets CB Darrelle Revis. Adrian Peterson leaving tacklers grasping at air. An entire Broncos offensive line lit up like the fourth of July by the Patriots' defensive line during the AFC Divisional Round.

Actually, pretty much all of Denver lit up by New England during the AFC Divisional Round.

As we watch today's stars, it's hard to imagine what they did way back in high school.

Thank Tebow for Youtube—where no action in the last decade has gone unrecorded. The good, the bad, the ugly—and the spectacular.

Some of the following footage is grainy. Some of it has horrendous music. Some of it looks like it was shot by someone going through the DTs.

All of it showed men amongst boys.

Here are my top 10 most dazzling highlight videos of some of the NFL's brightest, best or most popular.

***FYI*** About half the videos have music and a few of those have some dicey language in them. I'll point them out and NSFW them for you and the sake of your children and/or jobs.

Jay Cutler, Heritage Hills High

Cutler may be a scowling SOB in Chicago (or Denver, or...pretty much everywhere), but he makes some very nice plays when not being hammered behind the Bears' offensive line.

If you want to see what Cutler can do with an offensive line, check out this video. Cutler attended Heritage Hills High in Lincoln City, Indiana and led them to a 15-0 record as well as the first state title in school history when he was a senior in 2000.

He plays quarterback, defensive back, returns kicks and does it all with ease amongst kids who just look like they shouldn't be on the field with him.

Cutler absolutely obliterates a player at about 1:03 in the recording.

He catches well, throws a nice deep ball and does a good job defending the pass as well.

Come to think of it, if I'm the Bears, I might have Cutler go both ways and catch his own passes.

Can't hurt.

There is some basketball footage at the end. Cutler was a fair basketball player as well, but feel free to skip if you want to move on. Neither he nor I will care.

Adrian Peterson, Palestine High School (NSFW Music)

When Adrian Peterson played at Palestine High School in Palestine, Texas, he must have been incredibly disheartening to play against.

There's so much of his game today that is evident even back when he was truly unstoppable. He had his speed (:25), could absolutely blow someone up (:37), threw ankle breaking jukes (1:25), walked through tackles (2:23) and effortlessly reversed the field (2:48) at the drop of a hat.

A few of those moves remind me of stuff he does today in the NFL.

I'm hopeful his ACL/MCL injury doesn't ruin his pro career. There's so much talent we get to see every Sunday that it'd be a shame to see him come back and struggle.

Percy Harvin, Landstown High School

No soundtrack to this one, just the music of players whiffing as Harvin speeds past them.

He could be physical, too. Check out the hit he delivers on a defender as he blows into the end zone (:29). Harvin had caught the ball off of a deflection and headed upfield.

I like a receiver who isn't afraid to lower his shoulder and lay a defender out.

Didn't hurt that he was probably twice the size of the defender.

Harvin was a defender himself and was good at reading a play and coming down with a ball at :32. He has a nice return on that as well.

Harvin does a good job at quarterback, too, such as on a fantastic run at :55 where he takes it to the house.

I also liked the catch and hop into the end zone at 1:26.

There are plenty of catches, runs and returns that show off his speed and agility—even back in high school.

Cam Newton, Westlake High School

You could see Newton's athleticism even back in high school during his days in Savannah, Georgia.

He could throw the ball well and when he decided to run the ball, the defense was in tremendous trouble.

People have said Newton was lazy and didn't work hard even on the field, but looking here (especially the run at 1:35 where he keeps pumping his legs and fighting for yards), you can see how inaccurate it is. His touchdown run at 3:10 was another great example of his ability and leg drive.

He did struggle a bit in getting rid of the ball when there was nobody open (1:48), but more often than not his athleticism bailed him out, such as on the play at 2:03.

By the way, I don't know who No. 42 is on the blue team, but WOW. That kid is a beast.

LeRon Landry, Hahnville High School

It was actually kind of tough to find video on NFL defensive players. I looked for a few (Darrelle Revis had a long video that was 50 percent basketball, which was 50 percent more than I was looking for) and was very surprised to come across one for current Washington Redskin safety LaRon Landry.

Landry was very impressive in high school (once you figure out he's returning punts and kicks to start the video). In the punt return starting at :30, he clears out of junk, finds the outside edge and makes something out of what should have been nothing.

Then he starts playing defense. He nearly has a very nice pick at 1:26 but comes down out of bounds. On the play starting at 1:39, Landry does an outstanding job of reading the defense and stepping in front of a pass for a pick six.

He runs a nice swinging gate as well (1:50).

Landry also likes to hit and delivers a beauty at 5:04.

Landry missed a lot of this past season with an Achilles injury but has been having a nice career. It all started all the way back in Ama, Louisiana.

Tim Tebow, Nease High School

Yeah, you may be sick of hearing Tim Tebow's name. You may believe he's going to be a tremendous quarterback or think next year is going to be a disaster.

Whatever the case, I don't think you can debate how good he was back in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, where he played football at Nease High School (Tebow was home schooled but a 1996 Florida law allowed home-schooled students to play on the team of a local school in the school district they lived in).

Even back then he was unafraid of contact. Check out the hit he lays out on a defender at :49. Notice on the replay who is standing at the end of the collision.

He also makes a tremendous throw on the run at 1:01 for a touchdown.

Sure, these are high school students he is playing against, but you can see some of the things he is starting to do on this video.

I don't know if he'll make it as a NFL quarterback. He sure was fun to watch in high school, though.

Maurice Jones-Drew, Concord De La Salle

If you do NFL draft analysis long enough, you miss as much as you hit. Wes Bunting, who I have had the pleasure of talking to in Mobile at the Senior Bowl as well as several times on the phone, wrote an excellent article about how to take those misses and learn from them.

I recommend it highly for anyone in any field because you only get better when you look back at where you went wrong.

The reason I bring this up is because I missed and missed big on Jones-Drew.

Many, many people did. MJD was on a poor UCLA team and had Reggie Bush (we'll get there in a slide or two) across town at USC.

So I could just say I was blinded by USC, but really it was size and weight that burned me on that. He had the frame to add more mass and I should have seen that.

Looking back on it, Jones-Drew played very well at UCLA. He played even better (and won more as the team never lost a game in his three years there) at De Salle High School in Concord, California.

This video shows the determination, strength and speed that have been a hallmarks of his career in the NFL as well. It starts off with a kick return showing him dragging defenders an extra 10 yards.

He does something similar when he stands up a defender and keeps going at :23. He follows that up with a nice catch and run (again, bowling someone over) for a touchdown at :41.

In this game against No. 2 Long Beach Poly, Jones-Drew had four touchdowns and romped over Long Beach.

He was only a junior.

Julio Jones, Foley High School (NSFW Music)

There are so many ridiculous plays on this video, I can't even break them all down. Jones makes circus catches, jukes defenders, flat out dismisses one guy at 1:17—everything you see each game he plays for Atlanta.

Heck, the one-armed catch at the end is worth sitting through the whole thing, even if it wasn't 100 percent awesome.

Maybe the Falcons were crazy to trade almost their whole draft for this guy.

Watching this video, you can see why someone would get hypnotized.

Reggie Bush, Helix High School

Bush has only just started consistently playing up to his draft pick (and even that is debatable, as he was once again hurt to end the season), but this video shows what he can do when he's firing on all cylinders.

On these runs, Bush shows great balance and athleticism as well as the speed which made some scouts lose their mind over him at USC.

One of my favorite plays on this video starts at 1:49. Bush crosses the field on a short pattern and the quarterback delivers the ball. Bush then cuts outside and turns upfield until at 1:58 when he is running out of open space. Bush cuts back across the field spins out of a tackle at the two-minute mark and turns on the afterburners for a touchdown.

With the whole defense on the left side of the field, once he got out of traffic, it was over.

I wonder if the ease with which Bush blew away defenses both in high school and at the collegiate level made him a little slower to adapt at the NFL level.

Maybe that's why he's only now reaching his potential.

Whatever the cause, his high school work is something to behold.

DeSean Jackson, Long Beach Polytechnic High School

DeSean Jackson is a fantastic player who frustrates not just his opponents, but his fans and teammates as well.

When he's on the field and his head is in the game, he is incredible to watch.

For example, his catch and touchdown run at :13. Jackson does a great job letting his quarterback know he's open, catching the ball and then making tacklers slip and slide as he cuts and jukes past them.

Jackson, on more than one occasion, gets separation easily as defenders cannot keep up with his speed, and he shows his deadly kick-returning ability on plays like the one starting at :59.

Sometimes he even jukes himself (see the play at 1:25).

Numerous times in this video you will see Jackson just run past defenders as if they are standing still. It's incredible and given the way his season went this year, it's a reminder of just how good Jackson can be.

Look! Pop Warner Bonus Footage!

You know what's amazing about the above video (aside from the antics of 10-year-olds in helmets too big for their heads)?

That it looks better than most of the high school videos we just saw.

People are really scary with their Pop Warner and Pee Wee Football highlights, by the way.

Who knows, though? In 15 or 20 years I could be sifting through Youtubefacebookgoogle.com for videos on these kids.

Knowing full well that I might have missed something or someone and knowing full well that you guys are—like men—looking at the next crops of NFL studs, throw out some Youtube links of guys we know, guys we don't and guys we should.

Just toss them in the comments and let's see some more grainy footage of today's NFL players.