He’s a college football legend, but where does Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel rank in the 2025 NFL Draft with his scouting report? Will he earn an opportunity to sustain his production at the NFL level?
Dillon Gabriel’s Draft Profile and Measurements
- Height: 5’11”
- Weight: 204 pounds
- Position: Quarterback
- School: Oregon
- Current Year: Sixth-Year Senior
Some guys, in spite of all the numbers, metrics, and evaluations, were just born to play football. Gabriel is that kind of player.
Gabriel was the Gatorade High School Football Player of the Year at Mililani High School in Hawaii, and as a true freshman, he led UCF to a 10-3 record and a bowl victory in 2019.
From the very start, Gabriel has been one of the most productive passers in the entire nation, and that constant production over the better part of five years has led to very impressive career-long statistics.
Heading into the 2024 season, the electric left-handed passer ranks eighth in NCAA history in both passing yards and passing touchdowns. He’s fourth all-time in NCAA history in total TDs, and with a strong year, he can break the record for career starts by a QB, set by Oregon’s Bo Nix in 2023.
What’s more: Gabriel is coming off his best season yet. At Oklahoma in 2023, he completed 266 of 384 pass attempts for 3,660 yards, 30 TDs, and just six interceptions, and he also ran for 373 yards and 12 scores. Additionally, his year was headlined by a heroic Red River Rivalry win against Texas.
Gabriel’s name is forever etched in the annals of CFB history, along with some of the greatest, most prolific passers ever to play at the collegiate level — Case Keenum, Kellen Moore, and Baker Mayfield among them.
But how does Gabriel profile as a 2025 NFL Draft prospect?
Gabriel’s Scouting Report
Strengths
- Certified gamer with ultimate competitiveness and resolve in high-leverage situations.
- Acclimated immediately as a true freshman in 2019 and succeeded in multiple spots.
- Has enough arm strength to drive throws into the deep third past underneath DBs.
- Has enough arm elasticity to widen throwing windows on short rhythm passes.
- Possesses great linear speed and burst and can be used as a designed running threat.
- Has very clean mechanics and natural mechanical congruence, and he stays in phase.
- Able to place boundary passes to receiver leverage and nullify defender positioning.
- Can throw with touch and loft deep passes into buckets outside the numbers.
- Has the poise to patiently stand and deliver with pressure looming as options open up.
- Can slide and navigate through narrow pocket lanes while scanning the field.
- Generally good processor who can execute with quickness and maintain malleability.
- Flashes the ability to make full-field progressions and trigger on secondary reads.
- Has shown he can look off single-high safeties to open up opportunities on the boundary.
- Has good discretion and outlet awareness and can work to his checkdown when hot.
Weaknesses
- Has below-average size and weight for the QB position.
- Arm strength is only above-average and falls well short of the elite mark.
- Downfield drive can be inconsistent at times, which allows DBs to close gaps.
- Doesn’t have great arm elasticity, as velocity often wanes throwing off-platform.
- Despite linear athleticism, doesn’t have elite overall creation capacity or dynamism.
- Concave release sometimes pushes short and intermediate throws over their targets.
- At times arm throws too much to compensate for non-elite strength, eroding precision.
- Can be slow to work from read to read on multi-progression throws.
- Sometimes fails to anticipate in-breaking routes breaching second-level windows.
- Patience can be a double-edged sword, allowing pressure to collapse the pocket.
- On occasion, throws up 50-50 balls without properly attuning to the back shoulder.
- Missed most of the 2021 season with a broken clavicle in his left shoulder.
- Will turn 25 years old in December of his rookie season.
Current Draft Projection and Summary
Entering the 2025 NFL Draft cycle, Gabriel grades out as a late-Day 3 prospect in the class. As a player who’ll be 25 years old at the end of his rookie season and without high-end arm talent, there isn’t much room to keep rising — but he’s a quality backup candidate.
Gabriel will end his career as one of the most productive passers in college football history, and he’s proven himself to be a factor in his team’s success at multiple schools.
Not only that, but across almost five years of starting experience, Gabriel has put together a good operational profile.
Gabriel is a good processor, a poised pocket operator, a solid decision-maker, and one of the cleaner mechanical passers on the 2025 NFL Draft circuit. And beyond his operational utility, Gabriel has enough arm to survive in a limited role, as well as the athleticism to provide rushing value.
That said, in spite of his mechanics, Gabriel isn’t always as consistent as preferred with his situational precision, and he doesn’t have the composite arm talent to layer tight-window throws with proficiency. To that end, his non-elite arm strength also prevents him from driving velocity consistently.
Gabriel’s non-elite physical traits limit his ceiling, and he’s not at the elite level operationally to counteract that. But as a passer with good athleticism, toughness, pocket skills, mechanics, and processing ability, he’s a prime backup candidate with potential spot-starter upside in the NFL.