Diego Pavia's myth-making at Vanderbilt was never going to sway the NFL | Estes – The Tennessean

Let’s not overthink this.
If former Vanderbilt football star Diego Pavia was 6-foot-4, 250 pounds and had a rocket arm, no NFL exclusives would’ve cared about regrettable posts or comments or when he’d hired an agent. They’ve have been applauding Pavia’s chutzpah while plotting to add him as a franchise quarterback.
Then again, if Pavia had five-star measurables, we wouldn’t be talking about that other stuff. He wouldn’t have needed such a brash personality to gain attention and reach such inconceivable heights, going from junior college walk-on in New Mexico to Heisman Trophy finalist in the SEC despite standing barely 5-foot-10 and lacking arm strength. His fuel was being doubted and overlooked for so long.
He’s not overlooked anymore. Now he’s just doubted.
NFL teams saw everything Pavia accomplished to beat the odds at Vanderbilt. They just didn’t care about feats and five-star intangibles. They cared more about those odds. Predictably.
Come draft time, NFL teams aren’t interested in underdog stories. They are desperate to win. That requires talent. They need a quarterback who can make all the throws, and to do that, it helps to be able to see the field while standing in the pocket behind tall, rangy linemen.
If a quarterback can do that, he’ll be drafted high and given every opportunity to stick in the NFL.
And if he can’t?
Well …
I’ve long believed, as it pertains to Pavia, the smartest pro organization has been the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. Teams in the CFL keep running lists of up to 45 potential players, reserving the right to negotiate.
The Bombers are listed as having added Pavia to theirs on June 1, 2024. Before he’d thrown a pass for Vanderbilt.
How’s that for scouting foresight, huh? Pavia could be an all-timer in the CFL.
As for the NFL, no one should’ve been surprised by Pavia going undrafted, rare as the indignity was for a Heisman runner-up. I never expected Pavia to be drafted. I’d anticipate some NFL franchise giving Pavia a shot to make the team. And he might make that team. It is unwise to bet against Pavia.
He is a very good football player. If he wasn’t, who would care that he wasn’t drafted? Pavia’s being a Heisman finalist who just quarterbacked a 10-win season at Vanderbilt is why it was big news.
Well, that and the fact that everything with Pavia has become big news. He’s a bona fide celebrity by today’s doom-scrolling standards. There’s a word for that – polarizing – and it transcends sports.
Folks who wouldn’t give the slightest flip about some NFL team’s third or fourth quarterback would be interested if that quarterback was Pavia. In the sports media industry, we very much understand this, believe me. We have numbers and data that tells us what to write about, based on what you most want to read about.
Fame like that can be a deterrent to an NFL general manager. Imagine a locker room where reporters and TV crews routinely sprint to the third-string quarterback before any of his teammates, making that QB the voice of an NFL team when he hasn’t earned that right. Even scarier for the team if that third-string quarterback is known to lack a filter, making him liable to say pretty much anything about anyone to those reporters.
Last thing an NFL team wants at draft time is a fringe talent who carries risk of distraction.
It’d be different, again, if Pavia wasn’t a fringe talent. But NFL teams aren’t going to invest time and effort looking for exceptions to change minds already made up, which Pavia has needed at least one NFL team to do seriously for him.
If one NFL team looked past the cocky persona, it might realize how special a competitor and leader he really was for Vanderbilt. How valuable a team guy he was for Vanderbilt. How much Pavia’s teammates, for the most part, would do anything for him.
It’d still be a stretch to equate that to the NFL, though. Pavia’s popularity and influence might, in fairness, not have been so positive for the Commodores if he’d been their backup. But he was never going to be the Commodores’ backup.
Vandy general manager Barton Simmons – who has long scouted football recruits for a living – posted on X during Day 3 of the draft: “(Pavia) is the best competitor I’ve ever seen.”
“Just put the ball down,” Simmons added.
If only it were that simple.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at [email protected] and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social

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