Diego Pavia Got A Tryout, Not A UDFA Deal. Eleven Quarterbacks Beat The Heisman Runner-Up To A Contract.

Diego Pavia accepted a rookie minicamp invitation from the Baltimore Ravens late Sunday night. The Ravens publicly disclosed that the invitation is on a tryout basis — not an undrafted-free-agent contract, the three-year minimum-salary deal teams hand out to players they want on the 90-man roster on Monday morning. By the time Pavia got that call, eleven other quarterbacks had already signed real UDFA deals. The Carolina Panthers gave Haynes King $250,000 guaranteed within an hour of the draft ending. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers gave Jalon Daniels a $247,000 base-salary guarantee plus a $25,000 signing bonus. The Heisman runner-up at Vanderbilt got three days from May 1 to May 3 to talk his way onto a roster.

The case for drafting Pavia — or at least signing him — sits on the stat sheet. He completed 71.2 percent of his passes for 3,192 yards with 27 touchdowns and eight interceptions. He added 826 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns on 152 carries. His 4,402 total yards led every Power Four player in the country and accounted for more than seventy percent of the Vanderbilt Commodores offense. He won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, the SEC Offensive Player of the Year award, and the Sporting News College Football Player of the Year award. He led Vanderbilt to its first ten-win regular season in program history and its first win over the Tennessee Volunteers since 2018.

The case against him sits on the measurement sheet. Vanderbilt listed Pavia at six feet through four years of college football. He measured five feet, nine and seven-eighths inches at the Senior Bowl in January and just under five-ten at the NFL Combine in February — the shortest player at the entire combine across every position, by more than two inches. His arm length came in at 28 and five-eighths inches. His hand size measured nine and five-eighths inches. He skipped the forty-yard dash entirely. The arm length number is the one NFL evaluators could not get past — it sits at the floor of any quarterback's measurable range, and it sets a hard ceiling on his throwing window.

The character file did not help. After Fernando Mendoza of the Indiana Hoosiers was announced as the 2025 Heisman winner, Pavia reposted a graphic to his Instagram story that read "F-ALL THE VOTERS BUT … FAMILY FOR LIFE." Hours later, video surfaced of him at a New York City nightclub raising his middle finger next to a sign that read "F--- Indiana." He apologized publicly the following morning. The clip never went away. An NFC scouting director told Pro Football Network that Pavia projects as a "college quarterback with an average arm." An AFC scout flagged the volatile entourage that travels with Pavia to games. None of this matters more than arm length, but none of it offsets it either.

The list of quarterbacks who received UDFA contracts before Pavia got a tryout is its own story. Haynes King left Georgia Tech for Carolina with the largest reported guarantee of the QB UDFA class. Jalon Daniels left Kansas for Tampa Bay. Joey Aguilar left Tennessee for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Mark Gronowski signed with the Miami Dolphins. Miller Moss landed with the Chicago Bears. Luke Altmyer signed with the Detroit Lions. Kyron Drones went to the Green Bay Packers. Matthew Caldwell signed with the Los Angeles Rams. Sawyer Robertson and Jacob Clark both went to the Las Vegas Raiders. Jack Strand signed with the Atlanta Falcons. Some of those names produced less in 2025 than Pavia did. None of them had to debate whether the CFL was the more realistic path on Sunday night.

The historical comparison is bleak in two directions. Pavia became the first Heisman runner-up since Iowa Hawkeyes quarterback Brad Banks in 2003 to go undrafted. Banks signed with Washington that May, was cut weeks later, and spent five seasons in the Canadian Football League before drifting into Arena Football. Pavia is also the first Heisman finalist of any kind to go undrafted since Northern Illinois Huskies quarterback Jordan Lynch in 2014. Lynch made the Chicago Bears as a UDFA, was waived inside a month, and was out of the league inside a year. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the CFL have already publicly indicated interest in Pavia's rights, which is a quiet way of saying his agent is keeping that exit open.

The narrow path forward is real. The Ravens carry Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley as their only quarterbacks under contract heading into rookie minicamp, and Baltimore did not draft a quarterback in the 2026 NFL Draft. A standout three days from May 1 to May 3 could earn Pavia a 90-man training camp invite, which is the actual prize at stake. Lamar Jackson is six feet two inches, runs the entire offense out of design and improvisation, and built a Hall of Fame résumé in a body the league's evaluators once said was too small. Pavia is two inches shorter, with three-quarters of an inch less arm. The Ravens, of all teams, have a reason to find out anyway.