MOBILE, Ala. — The top quarterbacks trying to help their draft stock here are putting the Senior Bowl on display, well-traveled passers who have excelled for two if not three college programs, playing six and even seven seasons to build up experience for the NFL.
Dillon Gabriel, 24, is one such quarterback, having played three years at UCF and two at Oklahoma before shining this past season at Oregon, where he finished fourth in Heisman voting. His career numbers are impressive: 64 games and NCAA records with 18,722 passing yards and 155 touchdown passes.
“You can’t get live reps as a quarterback until you go and experience it yourself, go through the ebbs and flows of what seasons, back to back, look like,” Gabriel said. “You try to get as much football as you can, and I’ve used all that experience to my advantage as I try to continue learning more.”
Other top quarterback prospects include Tyler Shough, a 25-year-old who spent three seasons each at Oregon and Texas Tech before breaking through last fall with the Cardinals, passing for 23 touchdowns against six interceptions.
Jaxson Dart, 22, a top quarterback prospect from Ole Miss, spent his freshman year at USC, while Riley Leonard, 21, from Notre Dame, spent most of his college years at Duke.
These quarterbacks aren’t in the 2025 draft’s top tier, but for most of the quarterbacks here, the challenge is a daunting one: to bring the late-round quarterback gem back to the NFL.
The NFL is in a constant state of desperation, with any team that doesn’t have a franchise quarterback using high draft picks until it finds one. Six quarterbacks went in the top 12 picks last spring, with impressive results, but the dropoff was pronounced after that. Only one other rookie quarterback started even one game, and it was the Saints’ Spencer Rattler, who went 0-6 as an injury replacement.
Former Saints quarterback Drew Brees thinks the urgency to use high picks on quarterbacks has made it tougher for lower-round picks to find success, but perhaps quarterbacks with a lot of college experience can change that.
“It’s tough to make it happen,” Brees said. “I think there’s somewhat of a formula from the perspective of being able to go get a guy with a lot of experience coming out of college. I think the more high-level college starts a guy has, the more prepared he would be to step in and be a contributor in the NFL.”