The Baltimore Ravens cut quarterback Diego Pavia, the 2025 Heisman Trophy runner-up who led Vanderbilt to a historic season, just one day before rookies were set to report to training camp, leaving the 24-year-old's NFL future in doubt.

Pavia, who went unselected in the 2026 NFL Draft and signed with Baltimore as an undrafted free agent in April, spent the entire offseason with the organization. The Ravens brought him in for a workout, kept him around through minicamps and OTAs, and then waived him Thursday, before he ever took a snap in a competitive camp setting. The move came to clear a spot on the 90-man roster for veteran center Ethan Pocic, OutKick's Armando Salguero reported.

Full-squad training camp practices open next Wednesday. Pavia will not be there.

Pavia ranked fifth on a four-quarterback depth chart

Baltimore's decision was not close. With starter Lamar Jackson and presumed backup Tyler Huntley locked into the top two spots, the Ravens narrowed the competition for the No. 3 job to veteran Skylar Thompson and rookie Joe Fagnano, another undrafted free agent. Pavia, by the team's internal evaluation, ranked fifth, behind all four. The Ravens decided to carry only four quarterbacks, and Pavia was the odd man out.

New head coach Jesse Minter had a built-in connection to Pavia. Minter is friends with Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea, who coached Pavia the past two seasons and apparently vouched for his former signal-caller. That familiarity got Pavia through the door. It did not keep him there once the coaching staff watched him compete through the offseason program.

Arm strength appears to be the core concern. Mike Renner, speaking on Dan Dakich's podcast, said Pavia was "likely done with football for good after college due to weak arm strength" and predicted fans would forget his name within a few years. That assessment may sound harsh for a player who finished second in the Heisman voting seven months ago, but it tracks with the fact that not one of 32 NFL teams used a draft pick on him.

A historic college career that did not translate

Pavia's college résumé was impressive by any measure. At Vanderbilt, he passed for 3,539 yards and 29 touchdowns and led the Commodores to their first 10-win season in program history, AP News reported. On December 13, 2025, he stood at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City as a Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing as the ceremony's runner-up.

None of it was enough. The NFL Draft came and went without his name being called. Baltimore gave him a chance as an undrafted free agent, and the organization saw enough over three months of work to conclude he could not beat out Thompson or Fagnano, two players who, like Pavia, arrived without draft pedigree.

It is a familiar story in professional football. College production, even at the highest level, does not guarantee an NFL roster spot when the physical tools fall short. The league is littered with Heisman winners and finalists who never carved out lasting pro careers. Pavia now joins that uncomfortable category before his professional career has formally begun. The abruptness of the timing, cut the day before rookies report, only underscores how far down the depth chart he sat. In a league where high-profile cuts can come without warning, Pavia learned the hard way that reputation does not override evaluation.

Winnipeg stands ready if the NFL door stays closed

Pavia is now a free agent, able to sign with any NFL team willing to give him a look. But the most concrete interest may come from north of the border. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League have held Pavia's negotiating rights since 2024 and have publicly expressed interest in bringing him aboard, the New York Post reported.

Blue Bombers general manager Kyle Walters did not hold back about what he sees in the former Vanderbilt star:

"He's exciting. That guy wins. We would love to have him up here, and I think he would be a very interesting prospect if he ever makes his way up here."

The CFL season runs through October, so the window for Pavia to make that jump remains open. The UFL has also been mentioned as a possible landing spot. But for a player who stood on the Heisman stage in December, suiting up in Winnipeg or a spring league represents a steep fall from the spotlight.

Whether another NFL franchise takes a flier on Pavia before the regular season remains an open question. No reports of interest from other teams have surfaced. His agent may be working the phones, but the draft snub followed by a training-camp cut sends a clear signal to the rest of the league about how one organization evaluated his professional ceiling.

Two setbacks in three months tell the story

Going undrafted was the first blow. Getting waived before camp was the second. Both happened within roughly three months of each other, and together they paint a picture of a player whose college magic did not survive the transition to the professional level.

Pavia did everything right at Vanderbilt. He won games, put up numbers, and led a program with almost no modern tradition of success to heights it had never reached. He earned a Heisman finalist trip to New York. But the NFL is a meritocracy built on physical tools, and the evaluators, first 32 draft rooms, then the Ravens coaching staff, reached the same conclusion. Arm strength matters at the next level, and Pavia's apparently does not measure up.

College football rewards heart, instinct, and playmaking. The NFL rewards all of those things too, but only after the arm clears the bar. For Diego Pavia, that bar proved too high.