Diego Pavia did everything college football could ask of him. He turned down a wrestling scholarship to bet on himself, won a national title at JUCO, transferred twice, and led Vanderbilt to its first 10-win regular season in program history.
In 12 regular-season games in 2025, he threw for 3,539 yards and 29 touchdowns, and finished as the Heisman Trophy runner-up to Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza. Then the 2026 NFL Draft came and went without a single team calling his name.
Pavia became the first Heisman finalist to go undrafted since Northern Illinois quarterback Jordan Lynch in 2014. He eventually signed with the Baltimore Ravens, but per NBC Sports’ Mike Florio, his three-year deal came with zero signing bonus and zero guaranteed money. Not low risk. No risk at all.
Why Did the NFL Pass On Diego Pavia at the NFL Draft?
When the explanation finally came, it came from someone who spent nearly a decade breaking down the position at the highest level. Chris Simms, the former NFL QB and analyst, held nothing back in his assessment of why Pavia slid out of the entire draft.
“Undersized, not as good an athlete as people think,” Simms said. “When he has to play in the pocket, the throwing is underwhelming. When the competition got better, he did not get better; he got worse. On top of that, he’s not that fast. He plays below average from the pocket. He makes a lot of headlines for the wrong reasons. He’s going to be our third-string or practice squad quarterback.”
The numbers back up the size concerns. Pavia measured 5-foot-9 and 7/8 inches at the NFL Combine, the shortest player in attendance by more than two inches. The two smallest quarterbacks drafted in the modern era, Kyler Murray and Bryce Young, both measured at 5-foot-10 and 1/8 inches and went first overall with elite athletic profiles to offset the risk. Pavia does not have that same baseline.
According to PFSN’s CFB QB Impact Metric, Pavia finished the 2025 regular season ranked first in the nation with an impact score of 94.83, ahead of Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza’s 93.26. The best college quarterback in the country by that measure, and not one NFL team drafted him.
Then there was the noise. After losing the Heisman vote, Pavia was reportedly photographed in a New York club next to a sign reading “F— Indiana” and followed it with an Instagram post that drew widespread criticism before he apologized.
At the Combine, when asked about his maturity, he joked that his frontal lobe was still developing. Teams noticed.
Simms connected every dot into a single, damning conclusion. “No team in football wants that. That’s the end of it. That’s why he’s still sitting there.”
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The Ravens, to their credit, are giving Pavia a structured environment to make his case. Baltimore’s offense, built around two-time MVP Lamar Jackson, rewards QBs who can extend plays and think fast outside the pocket.
Ravens defensive coordinator Jesse Minter told reporters this week that Pavia would get a clean slate. Diego Pavia has proved people wrong at every stop of his career. In the NFL, that process starts from the bottom of the depth chart.
