Big Blue View
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)
Best traits
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...
