ESPN's Matt Miller predicts Quinn Ewers to have 'big Combine workout,' rise in 2025 NFL Draft

Despite another up-and-down year at Texas, Quinn Ewers is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing prospects in the 2025 NFL Draft. He led the Longhorns to back-to-back College Football Playoff semifinals, but isn’t considered one of the top quarterbacks on the board.

However, ESPN’s Matt Miller remains high on Ewers’ potential at the next level. He doubled down on his stance that the former Five Star Plus+ recruit could be one of the big risers this year.

Ewers – while dealing with two injuries – set a career-high in touchdown passes, but struggled with ball security as he threw 12 interceptions. Still, with the NFL Scouting Combine quickly approaching, Miller thinks Ewers can move up the board in April.

“I know he did not have the best year this past season,” Miller said Wednesday on ESPN’s NFL Live. “The oblique tear, the ankle injury. But he took Texas back. They were in back-to-back College Football [Playoff] semifinal games. He was the No. 1 overall recruit in his class – one of the highest-rated prep quarterbacks of al time, by the way. He’s still 21 years old because he reclassified, skipped his senior year of high school. I’m expecting a pretty big Combine workout from Quinn Ewers.

“His camp has told me he’s put on 10-15 pounds of ‘good weight.’ If you remember, he lost some weight between his freshman and sophomore seasons at Texas to be a little more agile. I think he’s going to put on a show at the Combine, and we know he’s going to interview well. So he could be another one of those names that as teams have these needs at quarterback, Quinn Ewers is the guy that could be going up.”

What Mel Kiper Jr. thinks of Quinn Ewers

Ewers is currently the No. 7-ranked quarterback in the 2025 draft class, according to ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. The headliners of the group are Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders – both of whom could go in the Top 5, depending on what teams at the top decide to do.

When it comes to success at the next level, though, Kiper argued Ewers has the upside to make noise in the NFL. But he has some questions about arm strength and the need to make “muscle throws.”

“With Quinn Ewers, if you could bottle some of those games and some of those series and some of the throws, and say, ‘Boy, if we could just level that off,’” Kiper said on First Draft. “I want him to put the foot on the gas. And I say, foot on the gas with that arm. I didn’t see a lot of muscle throws.

“In the NFL, you got tight windows. You got to muscle those throws in there, right? You got to stick it in there. And the thing is, he can do it, but a lot of times he’s trying to just loft it out there, lay it out there. And to me, sometimes you got to go 80 miles an hour, OK? You can’t go 30. Gotta go 80.”