Diego Pavia, the former Vanderbilt football quarterback and 2025 Heisman Trophy runner-up wasn’t picked in the 2026 NFL Draft, and former Tennessee Titans tackle Taylor Lewan believes he should have been.
Lewan said on the “Bussin With The Boys” podcast April 27 that he believes Pavia should have been taken as high as the fifth round, which would have been April 25 of the three-day draft. Pavia is the first Heisman finalist to go undrafted since Northern Illinois quarterback Jordan Lynch wasn’t picked in the 2014 NFL Draft.
“From a talent standpoint, he deserved to be in that fifth to seventh round,” Lewan said. “You got a guy that inevitably can be an emergency quarterback for you, but find his way in the special teams category.
“(He’s) shorter (5-foot-10), smaller, but he’s gritty. He’s willing to lower his shoulder and the kid, regardless of what you want to say about him off the field, is willing to learn and loves ball.”
The Tennessean’s 2025 Sportsperson of the Year made a few headlines off the field, most notably when he criticized Heisman voters on Instagram after the trophy ceremony.
Lewan said that NFL teams want to avoid distractions and pointed to Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who dropped to the fifth round in the 2025 NFL Draft, as an example.
“Especially in the football world, the NFL world, you want to limit distractions as much as possible,” Lewan said. “I think that’s what happened to Shedeur Sanders going in the fifth round last year.”
Pavia accepted an invitation to the Baltimore Ravens’ rookie minicamp, which runs May 1-3.
In 2025, Pavia, 24, was 267-for-378 passing for 3,539 yards and an SEC-best 29 touchdowns while also leading the conference in quarterback rating (170.4), passing percentage (70.6), yards gained per pass attempt (9.4), and adjusted yards gained per pass attempt (9.94). He also ran for 862 yards and 10 touchdowns.
He was named the SEC Offensive Player of the Year while leading the Commodores to the first 10-win season in program history.
In two seasons at Vanderbilt, he was 444-for-676 for 5,832 yards and 49 touchdowns and 12 interceptions passing in 26 games. He ran for 1,663 yards and 18 touchdowns.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina.
Subscribe to Updates
Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.
