Jake
Luton.
Jake
Luton.
Oregon St.· 6'6"· 224 lb
"A 6-6 pocket quarterback who needed four schools and a fractured vertebra to finally get a full season, Luton is the rare Day 3 passer whose senior tape looks better than his career arc suggests."Pre-draft read
A true pocket quarterback who plays tall and throws from a high release point that clears traffic without needing lanes. He is at his best on timing throws from under center and on play-action, where his footwork ties to the route and the ball comes out on rhythm. The deep ball is his signature: he layers verticals with touch and hits the boundary go route in stride.
The secondary trait is anticipation on intermediate in-breakers, where he reads the safety and works to the second option without panic. He is not an athlete who creates outside structure; he climbs the pocket rather than escaping it and takes sacks instead of throwing the ball away. What separates him is placement on the deep ball and the composure to hang in and deliver with a rusher arriving.
Under-center, play-action West Coast offense that protects the quarterback with defined reads and lets him throw on rhythm from a clean pocket.
Year 1: third quarterback who develops on the practice squad. Ceiling: a trusted veteran backup who can win a spot start in a play-action offense.
A spread offense built on designed quarterback runs, RPOs and off-script extension, where his lack of mobility erases half the playbook.
His value lives entirely inside structure, so the offensive line in front of him decides the outcome.
Jake Luton Oregon State Highlights: 2019 Season Touchdowns
Every scoring throw from his only full college season, the core of the evaluation.
Jake Luton leads Beavers over Bruins, 48-31
His six-touchdown afternoon against UCLA, the signature game of his career.
Jake Luton named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week after breakout against UCLA
Conference recognition for the performance that put him on NFL boards.
Luton's evaluation rests almost entirely on one season. He walked on at Idaho, spent a year at Ventura College, transferred to Oregon State and needed until his final year to put together a full slate. The projection is a developmental backup with legitimate NFL size and a pro-style throwing profile, a quarterback who could run a timing offense from the pocket if the pass protection holds.
The production in 2019 was the case for him: 222 of 358 for 2,714 yards with 28 touchdowns and three interceptions in 11 games, a ratio that ranked among the best in the country. He threw six touchdowns against UCLA and was named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week. The context is that his earlier seasons were fragmented: eight games at Idaho as a freshman, four games in 2017 before a thoracic spine fracture ended his year, then eight games in 2018 while sharing the job.
The flags were durability, age and mobility. He would be a 24-year-old rookie with a fractured-vertebra history and no ability to extend plays, which caps the ceiling for teams that want the quarterback as a runner. Evaluators liked the touch and the frame but questioned whether one clean season was enough. Consensus had him as a late-round developmental arm, and Jacksonville took him at 189 as a camp body behind Gardner Minshew.
- 01
Deep-ball touch
He layers verticals over the top with catchable trajectory and hits boundary go routes in stride, the single most translatable trait on his tape.
- 02
Rare frame and release
At 6-6 with a high, over-the-top slot, he throws over interior traffic without needing a clean lane and sees the whole field.
- 03
Elite 2019 decision-making
A 28-to-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio in his only full season shows he can protect the ball inside an offense that fits him.
- 04
Toughness under pressure
He climbs into the pocket and delivers with a rusher arriving, and he returned to play after a fractured thoracic vertebra.
- 05
Play-action rhythm
His drops tie to the route concept, so the ball comes out on time off boot and under-center action rather than after an extra hitch.
- 01
No escape ability
He cannot create outside the pocket, so a broken play usually becomes a sack rather than a scramble or an off-platform throw.
- 02
Injury history
A thoracic spine fracture cost him most of 2017, and durability is a live question for a passer with no evasiveness.
- 03
One-season sample
Only 2019 shows a full body of work, and the 2017 and 2018 tape is much less decisive with the same physical tools.
- 04
Older prospect
He entered the league at 24 after five college seasons at three schools, which shrinks the development runway teams will grant him.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— No athletic data recorded
| Yr | Team | G | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Idaho | 8 | 49 | 78 | 383 | 1 | 4 |
| 2017 | Oregon State | 4 | 83 | 135 | 853 | 4 | 4 |
| 2018 | Oregon State | 8 | 140 | 224 | 1660 | 10 | 4 |
| 2019 | Oregon State | 11 | 222 | 358 | 2714 | 28 | 3 |
| Career | — | 32 | 494 | 795 | 5610 | 43 | 15 |
Redshirted at Idaho in 2014 and appeared in one game that year without a pass attempt, which is why the career games total of 32 is one higher than the four listed seasons. His 2016 season at Ventura College is junior-college play and is not included. Passing totals across the four NCAA seasons sum exactly to the career line of 494-of-795 for 5,610 yards, 43 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Late-round arm who gets a handful of starts on a bad team and then lives on practice squads.
Pocket passer without athleticism who built a long career as a trusted backup in a timing offense.
Tall Oregon State passer who never threw a meaningful NFL pass despite years on rosters.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jacksonville pressed him into service quickly. With Gardner Minshew hurt, Luton started three games as a rookie in 2020 and finished 60 of 110 for 624 yards with two touchdowns and six interceptions, a 54.5 rating, plus a rushing touchdown. The debut against Houston was the high point: 26 of 38 for 304 yards and two total scores in a two-point loss, including a 73-yard completion. The next two starts went the other way, with one touchdown and five interceptions against Green Bay and Pittsburgh. He did not survive the 2021 cuts under a new staff and became a traveling third quarterback: Seattle for two games with no attempts, Miami's practice squad, back to Jacksonville, then New Orleans, Carolina and the Raiders' practice squad in December 2024.
In hindsight this was a reasonable sixth-round swing that never got a second chance. The pre-draft concerns were precisely the ones that showed up: no escape ability meant pressure turned into sacks and forced throws, and a rookie with no runway got his three starts behind a bad offensive line and never another one. The touch and the frame were real and kept him employed for years as a practice-squad arm, which is the modal outcome for the position at that pick. Jacksonville lost nothing on the selection, but it also never found a backup it trusted.