Skip Bayless headline omitted due to fact mismatch
skip bayless is tied to a Ravens quarterback move that gives Diego Pavia a three-year deal and a clean slate. Jesse Minter says Baltimore will judge the undrafted passer by what he does on the field, not by the label attached to him before he arrived.
Pavia Gets Baltimore’s Platform
Pavia signed the three-year deal before he finished a scheduled tryout with Baltimore, a sign the Ravens were willing to move early on a quarterback who was the 2025 Heisman Trophy runner-up. Minter said the team would give him “a platform to show what he can do,” which puts the focus on camp reps and practice snaps rather than the path that brought him there.
“One thing I would say about Diego -- and Clark Lea, the head coach at Vanderbilt, is a really dear, close friend of mine -- this guy was a force multiplier at Vanderbilt,” Minter said during a Wednesday appearance on Good Morning Football. “He came there at a time when they needed to get it going and Clark was building something. And this guy made everybody in the building better.”
Minter’s Read on Pavia
Minter also pointed to habits that travel with a quarterback, saying, “He's one of the first people in, he's one of the last to leave. He's a really hard worker.” That matters in Baltimore because Pavia is not entering an open runway. The Ravens signed veteran Tyler Huntley this offseason to serve as Lamar Jackson’s trusted backup, so any extra quarterback work this summer has to fit behind a deeper depth chart.
“We'll certainly have some talks about maybe how to handle certain things a little bit better. But, again, any rookie undrafted free agent -- come in and work. Let what you do on the field and by your actions show who you really are. We'll let him come in with a little bit of a clean slate and just give him a platform, along with the rest of the guys coming in, give them a platform to see what they can do,” Minter said. That is the real test for Pavia: earn attention without forcing Baltimore to change its pecking order.
Huntley, Jackson, and No. 3
2019 was the last time Eric DeCosta used a sixth-round pick on a quarterback, when he took Trace McSorley. This time, the Ravens have added Pavia after already bringing in Huntley, which narrows the room for anyone hoping to climb past the backup tier and into a roster conversation.
5-foot-10 and 207 pounds, Pavia brings a profile that will draw offseason scrutiny because Baltimore is not asking him to replace Jackson; it is asking him to survive a competition for position behind him. The clean slate Minter described gives Pavia a real chance, but the three-year deal only turns into leverage if his work forces the Ravens to keep carrying him into the fall.
