Jalen Milroe 2025 NFL Draft Scouting Report: Alabama’s Electrifying Enigma Under Center

Jalen Milroe’s journey from unheralded backup to Alabama’s starting quarterback culminated in a breakout junior season that has NFL scouts buzzing. Once Bryce Young’s understudy, Milroe took the reins of the Crimson Tide offense and, under the tutelage of Nick Saban and later Kalen DeBoer, blossomed into one of college football’s most dynamic playmakers. His blend of jaw-dropping athleticism and cannon arm has drawn equal parts awe and intrigue, and made him one of the most fascinating prospects in the 2025 NFL Draft class.

Milroe arrived in Tuscaloosa as a four-star recruit from Texas, biding his time behind Young in 2021-22 before earning the starting job in 2023. That first year as QB1 was a roller coaster, including an early-season benching and a triumphant SEC title win over Georgia, but it set the stage for another successful year in 2024. With DeBoer (fresh off mentoring Michael Penix Jr. at Washington) revamping Alabama’s offense, Milroe thrived in a system tailored to his strengths. The 6'2", 225-pound redshirt junior passed for 2,844 yards in 2024, but it was his unique athletic profile that truly separated him. Milroe is a rare breed of quarterback – a player with sprinter’s speed and a linebacker’s build, capable of outrunning defensive backs or uncorking a 60-yard bomb with a flick-of-the-wrist. In an era obsessed with dual-threat QBs, Milroe might have the highest ceiling of them all.

Dual-Threat Dynamo with Rare Physical Gifts

On the ground, Milroe was nothing short of spectacular. He piled up 726 rushing yards and an eye-popping 20 rushing touchdowns in the 2024 season, video-game numbers for an SEC quarterback. These weren’t just short sneaks or scrambles, either. In a Week 11 drubbing of LSU, Milroe ran for four touchdowns, including a 72-yard burst down the sideline that left the Tiger defense in the dust. “This was one of the best rushing attacks we’ve ever seen from an Alabama quarterback,” gushed former Tide QB Greg McElroy after that performance. Indeed, the tape from that night – Milroe repeatedly gashing a fast LSU defense – staked his claim as perhaps the most dangerous running quarterback in college football. At times, Alabama essentially featured him as a tailback who could also throw 40-yard lasers, creating a stress test for defenses rarely seen at the collegiate level.

It’s not just the production, it’s the speed itself that has evaluators drooling. According to Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy, team GPS data clocked Jalen Milroe as the fastest player on Alabama’s roster in 2022, even outpacing star running back Jahmyr Gibbs (who ran a 4.36-second 40 at the NFL Combine). In other words, Milroe possesses legit sprinter speed in a quarterback’s body. He reportedly ran the 40-yard dash of 4.37s during Alabama’s pro day, which would make him one of the fastest quarterbacks ever to enter the draft. That explosiveness shows up on the field every Saturday. Whether he’s pulling away on a designed QB draw or outrunning the angle on a scramble, Milroe’s legs are a true game-breaker. His running style is a bit different from a shifty Lamar Jackson or Jalen Hurts power run; Milroe is a north-south rocket with the frame to run through arm tackles and the wheels to outrun safeties. It’s no wonder Alabama often used him as a goal-line and short-yardage weapon (20 rushing TDs don’t happen by accident). As a runner, he is a constant home-run threat who forces defenses to account for 11-on-11 football at all times, a trait NFL coordinators covet in the modern game.

Crucially, Milroe’s athletic prowess isn’t limited to designed runs. He’s also adept at turning broken plays into big gains. All season, when protection broke down, Milroe showed a knack for improvisation. The play might start as a dropback pass, but it could end with him juking a linebacker in the open field or outracing everyone to the pylon. He kept many drives alive with his legs, displaying improved awareness of when to bail from the pocket. And unlike some young dual-threat QBs, he doesn’t simply tuck and run at the first sign of trouble. Milroe often keeps his eyes downfield while on the move, looking to make a play with his arm even as he scrambles. In fact, his rapport with Alabama’s receivers, especially freshman phenom Ryan Williams, led to a few off-script highlights where Milroe bought time and then fired a strike after the play broke down. At 225 pounds, he’s also shown he can absorb contact and bounce up, exhibiting the kind of toughness coaches love. Simply put, as an offensive weapon, Jalen Milroe can beat you in more ways than one, he's a true dual-threat dynamo.

A Big Arm Built for the Deep Ball

The other half of Milroe’s tantalizing skill set is his arm talent. Watch an Alabama game, and it won’t take long to see Milroe unleash a throw that drops jaws. He generates tremendous velocity with a relatively easy motion, and he loves attacking downfield. In fact, Pro Football Focus charted a 95.8 passing grade for Milroe on throws traveling 40+ yards in the air – the highest deep-passing grade of any QB in this draft class.

When he uncorks a deep ball, it’s often a thing of beauty. He can flick it 50 yards on a line or arc a high rainbow that drops perfectly into the bucket. In Alabama’s offense under DeBoer, Milroe was encouraged to take shots, and he delivered numerous long touchdowns. His signature might be the go-route or deep post. If a receiver got a step, Milroe would let it fly and trust his arm to beat the coverage. More often than not, he succeeded. There’s a confidence and aggression to his vertical passing that energizes an offense.

Case in point: even on one of his worst nights (a late-season road loss at Oklahoma), Milroe showed off that arm with a gorgeous throw early in the fourth quarter, a 36-yard laser for an apparent touchdown. The play was nullified by a penalty (the receiver had stepped out of bounds), but the throw itself was NFL-caliber, and it highlighted Milroe’s resilience and ability to respond to adversity with a big play. His best tape as a passer likely came in the 2023 SEC Championship against Georgia. On that big stage, Milroe calmly dissected an elite defense, using his arm to keep the Bulldogs honest. He was 6-of-9 on intermediate throws (10–19 yards) against Georgia, for 89 yards and a touchdown, earning a 92.3 PFF grade on those throws. In that game, he showed he could sit in the pocket and deliver strikes over the middle against tight coverage, not just rely on the deep bomb or his legs. The growth was evident and a testament to the work he put in with his coaches.

Milroe’s arm strength is undeniably special. He can hit far hash throws and drive the ball into tight windows that many college quarterbacks wouldn’t even attempt. Former Alabama assistants have remarked that Milroe can make “every throw in the book.” And unlike some strong-armed passers, he doesn’t have a long, slow windup, his release is quick and twitchy, almost like a shortstop turning a double play. That compact release helps when throwing on the run or off-platform; Milroe can sling it from various arm angles while rolling out, a handy trait for a mobile QB. He throws well on the move to his right and can zip the ball even without ideal footwork under him. In flashes, you see high-level arm talent that, coupled with his athleticism, can make your imagination run wild. One AFC scout reportedly went so far as to call Milroe “a better throwing Lamar Jackson,” indicating just how enticing the physical tools are. It’s rare to find a quarterback who can clock a sub-4.4 forty and launch 60-yard strikes with ease. Milroe is that rare talent.

Rough Edges: Inconsistency, Mechanics and Decision-Making

For all his highlight-reel plays, Jalen Milroe remains an enigma in many ways. NFL front offices will have to grapple with the gaps in his game, the moments of inaccuracy, the questionable decisions, and the rawness that shows up on film. The inconsistency as a passer is the first red flag. Milroe can drill a tight-window throw one series and then air-mail a routine check-down the next. His overall completion rate in 2024 (around 64%) was respectable, but it masks some wild variance. On intermediate throws, in particular, Milroe would miss too many “layups.” One advanced metric had 30.1% of Milroe’s passes in the 5–20 yard range deemed uncatchable, the fourth-worst rate among draft-eligible QBs (for context, only two NFL starters in 2024 were less accurate).

That kind of inconsistency on routine throws is concerning. It often comes back to his fundamentals: at times Milroe’s mechanics betray him. He has a tendency to throw with an overly wide base and fall off his platform, and his motion can look a bit robotic or rushed under pressure. The result is balls sailing high or coming out without proper touch. Unlike a polished passer, Milroe hasn’t yet mastered changing ball speeds and trajectories. He’ll ofent fire a 100-mph fastball on a short crossing route that might’ve been better with some finesse. Having said that, watching the tape, his receivers did him no favors on these routes, often dropping easy first-downs and even turning a few into interceptions.

Footwork is another area for improvement. When his feet are quiet and aligned, Milroe can be accurate. But too often his lower body mechanics get sloppy. Whether it’s not getting his hips all the way through, or drifting in the pocket, which leads to misfires. His lead leg will sometimes lock out or misalign at the last second (interestingly, a quirk Josh Allen had in college. That mechanical issue can cause passes to sail. Milroe's tendency to line up with a both feet at the same level, rather than having one foot forward and one back to be able to get into his drop quickly, displays just how much the Alabama pivot has to learn in the NFL. His flat base often causes him to be a tick late on short throws and layups.

The encouraging part is that these are fixable problems with coaching and repetition. Milroe’s arm is so live that he’s gotten away with some poor mechanics in college. In the NFL, he’ll need to become more consistent from the ground up. It’s worth noting, too, that Milroe’s hand size (measured just under 9 inches) is below the typical NFL threshold and that could factor into his grip and touch, and it likely contributed to nine fumbles in 2024 as he sometimes struggled to secure the ball in traffic.

Perhaps the biggest question mark, however, is the mental aspect of playing quarterback – reading defenses, processing quickly, and making good decisions under duress. Milroe has shown flashes of advanced play in this department, but he’s not yet consistent. Alabama’s 2024 offense often simplified things with predetermined reads and run-pass options, which at times masked Milroe’s still-developing ability to go through progressions. When his first read was open, Milroe could fire with anticipation. But, when defenses disguised their coverage and took away his primary target, he occasionally looked hesitant or slow to find the next option. As one PFF scouting report noted, if the picture changed post-snap, Milroe tended to get stuck on his first read, coming off it late and leading to tight-window throws. That showed up in a few of his interceptions.

In the upset loss at Oklahoma, for example, the Sooners consistently muddied the looks and pressured Milroe into mistakes. He threw three picks in the second half of that game, including a costly pick-six where he failed to see an underneath linebacker buzzing into his throwing lane. “I don’t know if he just didn’t see him or predetermined things,” coach Kalen DeBoer said candidly of that turnover . It was a stark reminder that Milroe is still learning the finer points of reading a defense.

To his credit, he generally bounced back from mistakes and didn’t lose his cool. Even after the interceptions at OU, he kept competing and actually had Alabama in scoring position again before another pressure-induced errant throw ended the threat. But at the NFL level, the windows get tighter and the defenses are far more complex. As such, Milroe will need to quicken his processing speed and learn to work through full-field progressions to succeed. Developing his processing speed will likely be the make-or-break feature of Milroe's NFL career. If he can speed up his timing and understanding of the game, watch out.

The good news is he’s shown growth. By late 2023, he was handling more complex reads in Tommy Rees’s pro-style system (Rees is the new Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator), and his football IQ shouldn’t be underestimated (he won Alabama’s team award for academic excellence). The challenge will be marrying his tremendous physical talent with the mental consistency required to run an NFL offense. As of now, Milroe is a bit of a boom-or-bust passer who is capable of brilliance, but also prone to head-scratching lapses.

Echoes of Richardson, Lamar and Allen – A Boom-or-Bust Prototype

Any time a quarterback prospect possesses elite size, speed, and arm strength but comes with questions about polish, the comparisons are inevitable. In Milroe’s case, draft pundits have drawn parallels to a few recent QB projects. The first is Anthony Richardson, last year’s athletic marvel out of Florida. Like Richardson, Milroe brings rare physical tools, both are 6’2″-plus, 225+ pounds, with rocket arms and sub-4.5 speed. Both also had streaky accuracy and limited starting experience in college. Richardson went through similar growing pains with processing and ball placement, yet the Indianapolis Colts still made him the 4th overall pick in 2023 purely on upside. Milroe’s profile is cut from that cloth – an extraordinary athlete who might require a significant developmental investment.

Another name mentioned is Trey Lance, the former North Dakota State QB who was all traits and limited tape; however, Milroe at least played in the SEC against top competition. Some evaluators have even likened Milroe’s trajectory to Josh Allen’s early days. In fact, Milroe’s inconsistent mechanics – like an open stance and late lead foot – mirror a young Josh Allen at Wyoming. Allen infamously completed barely 56% of his passes in college, often misfiring on simple throws, yet he had a cannon arm and elite athleticism that NFL coaches coveted. Buffalo bet on those traits, endured the growing pains, and eventually hit the jackpot as Allen refined his game. Milroe isn’t as tall as Allen (or have as quite as powerful an arm), but he might be an even more explosive runner, drawing some Lamar Jackson parallels as well. Jackson won a Heisman and had more QB savvy entering the draft, but like Milroe, he faced doubts about his passing consistency. The Ravens built a system to maximize Lamar’s strengths, and he became an MVP by Year 2.

What all these comparisons illustrate is the range of outcomes for Jalen Milroe. In the best-case scenario, he just might be a richer-man’s version of some past dual-threat prospects and could become the next great NFL weapon at the position. In the worst case, he could struggle to ever put it all together and fizzle out. “Boom or bust” is a cliché, but it truly fits here. Honestly, Milroe might be this class’s best chance to produce a “cyborg” quarterback who puts defenses in impossible binds. Or, he might be the guy who gets a coaching staff fired if he never develops.

Front offices will have to honestly assess their own ability to bring out the best in Milroe. The talent is undeniable: a quarterback with 4.3-speed who can throw darts will get plenty of attention. One NFL scout’s eyebrow-raising comment comparing Milroe to a more capable passer version of Lamar Jackson underscores that some see All-Pro potential in him. But for every Josh Allen success story, there’s a cautionary tale like Malik Willis – a superb athlete at QB who hasn’t been able to transition to the NFL game (a few great games as a backup in Green Bay notwithstanding).

Milroe’s draft stock is accordingly volatile. Some in the league are enamored enough to consider him in the late first round if the board falls a certain way, while others grade him as a mid-round project. Even within the draft community, opinions vary wildly. As one draft evaluator noted, it’s not hard to imagine a team falling in love and picking him early, or him sliding to Day 3 if teams get cold feet on the risk. That dichotomy perfectly encapsulates Milroe as a prospect: he’s the ultimate high-ceiling, uncertain-floor quarterback in this class.

Finding the Right NFL Fit and Outlook

For Jalen Milroe to fulfill his immense promise, landing in the right situation will be key. He is not a plug-and-play NFL starter on Day One – and that’s okay. What Milroe needs is a patient coaching staff and a creative play-caller willing to build around his unique skill set. Think of how the Baltimore Ravens tailored their offense for Lamar Jackson’s strengths, or how the Philadelphia Eagles doubled down on Jalen Hurts’ dual-threat abilities. An NFL team will want to tap into Milroe’s running threat (especially in the red zone and short-yardage) while bringing him along as a passer gradually. A quarterback-friendly system that is heavy on play-action, designed QB runs, and simplified reads could allow Milroe to see the field early in controlled doses as he develops. Milroe must be in a system where he doesn’t have to start immediately, under a coach known for developing quarterbacks. The ideal blueprint might be what the Kansas City Chiefs did with Patrick Mahomes (sitting him for almost a full year behind Alex Smith) or even the Jordan Love path in Green Bay. Let him apprentice behind a veteran, soak up an NFL playbook, and refine his mechanics on the practice field until he’s ready. Rushing Milroe onto the field too soon, before ironing out those kinks, could stunt his growth. As tantalizing as his talent is, he’ll need some polish before taking the keys to an NFL offense.

So which teams make sense? There are more than a few intriguing NFL fits. The Cleveland Browns make sense. As the franchise is surely looking for a new QB vision and could see in Milroe a chance to capture what they had hoped for with Deshaun Watson’s dual-threat ability. Or perhaps the Las Vegas Raiders, who missed out on a top QB in 2024 and might be enticed by Milroe’s ability to create magic when plays break down . The Raiders with an offensive weapon like Milroe and a dynamic tight end (imagine pairing him with a talent like Brock Bowers) could certainly conjure up exciting possibilities. Additionally, a team like the New York Giants could be a stealthy fit; with Brian Daboll (Josh Allen’s former mentor) at the helm, they know the value of patience and a tailored scheme. Daboll and GM Joe Schoen helped mold Allen in Buffalo, and while the Giants now have Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston under contract, they might view Milroe as a worthwhile project if he fell into the middle rounds. In that type of environment, Milroe could sit behind the veteran pivots for a year or two and then potentially give New York the kind of dual-threat upside they originally hoped for. Other quarterback-needy teams with creative offensive staffs, perhaps the New Orleans Saints or Pittsburgh Steelers, could also consider Milroe in a developmental role. The common thread is that any team picking him must have a long-term vision and commitment to nurturing his talent.

Ultimately, Jalen Milroe’s NFL future will come down to development. He is not a finished product, but rather a ball of clay teeming with potential. In the right hands, given the proper time, that clay could be sculpted into a superstar. NFL history has shown us that physical traits like Milroe’s are exceedingly rare – and when paired with the right coaching and work ethic, they can produce game-changing results. Milroe has already shown he’s coachable and resilient; by all accounts, he’s a hard worker and a leader in the locker room (legendary Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban praised his leadership and perseverance through adversity). Those intangibles will serve him well on the challenging road of NFL development. If he can improve his footwork, become more consistent with his accuracy, and speed up his mental processing, there is no limit to what he might become. We’re talking about a player who, in flashes, looks like a combination of a power runner and a deep-ball specialist – a potentially lethal combination in today’s NFL. It’s easy to envision a scenario where Jalen Milroe is lighting up Sunday highlight reels with 50-yard touchdown runs and 50-yard touchdown passes, becoming a true defensive nightmare. However, it’s just as easy to envision him holding a clipboard for a couple of years, ironing out the rough edges away from the spotlight, before he’s ready to shine.

In the end, NFL teams will have to answer the fundamental question: How much are you willing to bet on upside? Milroe represents the ultimate upside gamble in the 2025 Draft. His range of outcomes spans from future All-Pro to flame-out if the pieces don’t come together. All it takes is one team to fall in love with the tools and believe in their coaching staff’s plan. That team will call Jalen Milroe’s name, likely on Day 2, unless a bold GM swings early, and instantly set in motion one of the most intriguing development stories to watch. In a league increasingly dominated by quarterbacks who can do it all, Milroe offers the chance, in time, to add a truly rare talent to that pantheon. Give him time, give him coaching, and the kid who once outran the fastest Alabama tailback and launched moonshots in Bryant-Denny Stadium just might grow into an NFL sensation. Jalen Milroe has all the ingredients to be a future star, now it’s about finding the right recipe and patience to unlock his full potential. With the 2025 draft on the horizon, NFL fans and front offices alike will be eager to see which team is ready to take that leap of faith. The payoff could be spectacular.