2026 NFL Draft
Diego Pavia steered a Vanderbilt offense that led the nation with 7.5 yards per play in 2025. Steve Roberts / Imagn Images
Consider every actual thing Diego Pavia has done and said to hurt himself — not the fake things, one of which was shared Sunday by people who should know better — and apply them to a quarterback who is 6-foot-3 instead of 5-foot-10, with a powerful arm instead of an average one.
None of those things matters at all. The “F the voters” post when the two-year Vanderbilt star finished second to Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza for the Heisman Trophy. The occasional cocky statements or pregame “victory formation” practice. The friendship with Johnny Manziel. The 24-year-old’s decision when he was 21 and at New Mexico State to urinate on the practice field of rival New Mexico.
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That’s the list. That’s it. That was somehow enough for “character concerns” to be uttered at times about Pavia leading up to the NFL Draft. Balance that against Pavia’s production, extraordinary leadership skills and these imaginary traits, and he’s an imaginary contender with Mendoza to go No. 1 overall. Maybe he comes up just short again.
Now flip it around and imagine Pavia as a mini-Mendoza, a guy who projects to spend quiet nights playing Clue with Kirk Cousins and his family in greater Las Vegas. An Eagle Scout. Pair that with the production, with the leadership, and also with the 5-10 frame and arm that The Athletic analyst Dane Brugler called “mediocre” in ranking Pavia his No. 16 quarterback and outside his top 300 prospects.
Maybe he goes in the seventh round? Pavia’s personality is why a lot of people seem to be reveling in the fact that he went undrafted, but his physical limitations are why they have that opportunity. And why the story of a former zero-star recruit who led Vanderbilt — Vanderbilt! — to a 10-win season with video-game numbers will remain untouched as an all-timer in college football.
Vanderbilt had one player drafted this year, tight end Eli Stowers in the second round by the Philadelphia Eagles. Going back to the 2010 season, 59 SEC teams have won at least 10 games. Those teams had 6.8 players drafted on average. None had as few as one drafted. That, among countless other stats, clips and testimonials, is how good Pavia was leading Clark Lea’s team and running Tim Beck’s offense.
It’s possible to be a great college football player and not a top NFL prospect. It actually happens all the time. But I am surprised Pavia has to go the minicamp tryout route with the Baltimore Ravens rather than getting a free-agent deal from a team. The difference there, from a signing or seventh-round flier to a tryout, might be where his personality played a factor.
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As Brugler wrote, the “life of the party” persona wasn’t for every team. And all of them probably considered the potential for distraction, the attention around a significant public figure who would be fighting just to make the roster. Maybe Pavia hurt himself in interviews. Certainly, he had some unimpressive public moments, and those are on him.
But the Public Enemy No. 1 stuff is bizarre, even in the context of an NFL fan and media world that wastes no opportunity to go pig in slop at the first sign of someone else’s misery. I fully expected Tennessee fans to delight in Pavia’s plight — he’s their rival, he has said unflattering things in the past about Tennessee, and he destroyed the Vols on their home field last season.
I did not realize some people who cover the NFL have him mistaken for a Bond villain. Or a clueless slacker. A prominent NFL X account, Mike Florio’s Pro Football Talk, posted to 1.9 million followers Saturday that Pavia doesn’t have an agent, citing an interview Pavia did with Jon Gruden, and suggesting that as a pre-draft misstep.
Thing is, when Pavia told Gruden, “Ain’t nobody taking my money,” he was talking about the decision not to hire an agent while in college. He very much has an NFL agent. Which was cleared up weeks ago. Which somehow eluded Florio. Who never bothered to delete the erroneous post.
But at least he didn’t share the fake post of a parody account on Sunday claiming that Pavia went on Instagram to say: “f___ the @nfl i write my own path.” The list of professional media folks who shared that as legitimate, or at least asked aloud if it was, is much longer than the acceptable number of zero.
Maybe a little humbling is good for Pavia. There’s no need to create a fantasy world in which he threw it all away to do podcasts with Theo Von.
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The reality is, when NFL scouts came through Nashville in his breakout season of 2024, they asked about Pavia to be polite. In 2025, they asked with purpose, because his improvement forced them to pay attention. Playing off script too much is a popular Pavia criticism, but he took big strides as a senior in staying within the framework and lacing more singles and doubles.
And I know character and leadership were seen as Pavia assets in some NFL buildings, in no small part because Lea and anyone else asked about the four-time captain would give them stories until the notebooks were full.
That didn’t make Pavia any bigger. It didn’t add thunder to his right arm. I still think there’s a chance he’s Doug Flutie 40 years later, but maybe that’s more CFL Flutie than NFL Flutie.
Boston College Flutie remains the most fun of all, and cemented in college football history, and so it will be with Pavia.
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