2025 NFL Draft prospect profile – Dillon Gabriel, QB, Oregon

Is Gabriel the next Russell Wilson?

Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel is one of the most intriguing passers in the 2025 NFL Draft.

He’s also one of the least talked about quarterbacks at the national level, and the fact that he’s rarely brought up for quarterback needy teams like the New York Giants makes little sense on paper.

Gabriel quick, agile, has a strong arms, and has been efficient and productive quarterbacks in this draft class. From a stats perspective, he compares extremely well to the top quarterbacks in this year’s “Deep Dive” series:

Completion percentage: 72.9 percent (2nd – Shedeur Sanders 1st: 74.0 percent)
Yards per game: 375.5 (1st – Cam Ward 2nd: 331.8ypg )
Sack rate: 4.5 percent (2nd – Tyler Shough 1st: 3.0 percent)
Pressure to sack rate: 13.9 percent (2nd – Tyler Shough 1st: 9.3 percent)
EPA: 89.7 (2nd – Cam Ward 1st: 103.2)
QBR: 86.5 (2nd – Cam Ward 1st: 88)

Not only that, his predictive stats would have compared well to the 2024 quarterback class as well:

Completion percentage: 2nd (Bo Nix 1st: 78.6 percent)
Yards per game: 1st (Bo Nix 2nd: 325.5)
Sack rate: 3rd (Bo Nix: 1.23 percent, Michael Penix: 1.8 percent)
Pressure to sack rate: 3rd (Bo Nix and Michael Penix T-1s: 7.6 percent)
EPA: 3rd (Jayden Daniels 1st: 132.3, Bo Nix 2nd: 96.2)
QBR: 4th (Jayden Daniels 1st: 95.6, Bo Nix 2nd: 91.1, J.J. McCarthy 3rd: 90.8)

All the “sticky” stats that tend to be stable between college and the NFL suggest that Gabriel could be one of the best quarterbacks to come out in recent years.

But… Of course there’s a “but”.

But, Gabriel is also a pretty extreme outlier from a measurable perspective, which can be a difficult at best sell from a scout to a GM, or a GM to an owner. And as with other outliers in the past, that very well could force Gabriel down the draft board.

The Giants need a quarterback of the future, but could they take a risk on a player like Gabriel?

Prospect: Dillon Gabriel (8)
Games Watched: vs. Michigan State (2024), vs. Ohio State (2024), vs. Purdue (2024), vs. Illinois (2024)
Red Flags: Broken clavicle (2021)

Measurables

Kent Lee Platte | RAS.football

Strengths

Best traits

• Experience
• Accuracy
• Athleticism
• Arm strength
• Football IQ

Dillon Gabriel is an undersized but smart, experienced, athletic, efficient, and productive quarterback prospect.

Gabriel is a quick, twitchy athlete for the quarterback position with very good agility and short-area quickness. He has the ability to execute bootleg rollouts, flow within the pocket, scramble to extend plays, and contribute to the running game as a ball carrier himself. He doesn’t have great long speed, however he hits his top speed quickly and has the ability to make would-be tacklers miss in close quarters.

His athleticism is usually in service of his passing, and Gabriel has impressive arm talent. He has a very quick and compact throwing motion with and the ability to alter his arm angle and throw from a variety of slots to throw around defenders. He generates impressive torque through his upper body and is able to access deeper areas of the field as well as throw with good accuracy on the move.

While Gabriel is undersized, he’s clearly a quick-twitch athlete and has good explosiveness. That allows him to generate good velocity and generate zip in the short and intermediate area of the field, as well as drive the ball deep. He’s an accurate passer with solid precision to set up yards after the catch or layer the ball between defenders down the field.

Finally, Gabriel has high football IQ and experience in a variety of systems thanks to his travels at the collegiate level. He started his collegiate career at UCF, transferred to Oklahoma in 2022, and then to Oregon in 2024. He does a good job of identifying pressure as well as understanding where his options are downfield. Likewise, he understands when to fold and move on to the next play, as well as when to extend and give his receivers time to work open.

Gabriel has a good feel for pocket management and has one of the lowest sack rates (4.5 percent) and pressure-to-sack rates (13.9 percent) in the draft class. He’s also been consistently efficient with an excellent interception rate as well as consistently high EPA.

Weaknesses

Worst traits

• Size
• Age
• Handedness (left handed)

The biggest concerns regarding Gabriel are the things he can’t do anything about.

First and foremost, he’s undersized for an NFL quarterback at 5-foot-11, 205 pounds, with 29 ⅝ inch arms. Likewise, his 9 ¼ inch hands could be a problem for some teams as well. He’ll likely come in well below most teams’ measurable thresholds, and could be off some teams’ boards entirely because of it.

The success of Russell Wilson and Baker Mayfield, as well as Kyler Murray, could be a mitigating factor in the minds of decision makers, but Gabriel’s height does impact his game. He needs to play further back in the pocket than a taller quarterback to maximize his sight lines. Likewise, he is better at attacking the perimeter than the middle of the field.

He also typically uses ¾ release which doesn’t allow him to play taller than he is (something Wilson does), and can expose him to batted balls at the line of scrimmage. Likewise, corralling high snaps can also be a problem for Gabriel.

Gabriel is also left handed, which could cause some teams hesitation. The importance of a “blindside” tackle is largely a thing of the past due to the prevalence of pass rushing duos and exotic blitzes. However, teams might be concerned that a left-handed quarterback could force them to make significant changes to play and blocking scheme design.

Finally, Gabriel is relatively old for a prospect at 24 (turning 25 on 12/28/25). The success of Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix could help with that concern, but teams will likely wonder how much upside and further development he has ahead of him.

Game Tape

Projection

Dillon Gabriel projects as a reserve backup quarterback who has starting upside in the right situation.

Gabriel likely won’t be for every team, however he has the potential to be a legitimate draft steal if he lands in the right situation. His predictive stats compare well not only with the players at the very top of this quarterback class, but last year’s as well.

The comparisons to Russell Wilson are unavoidable, and not unwarranted. It wouldn’t be fair to Gabriel to project that he will be as good as Wilson has been over the course of his career, but there are more than a few similarities between them.

None of the concerns in his game should be disqualifying in and of themselves, however they could give more risk-averse teams significant pause when taken as a whole. After all, an older, short, left-handed quarterback could be a tough sell to ownership. And while a GM could spread the blame around if a “prototypical” player misses, missing on an extreme outlier is a career killer.

But some team will judge that Gabriel’s upside is worth the potential risk.

The big question is which team will select him, and whether they’ll have an environment in which he can succeed. If Gabriel lands in the right situation, he could make a lot of men look very foolish for passing on him.

Does he fit the Giants?
On paper, yes.

Final Word: A first round talent who will likely slip to Day 2.