The Herald is breaking down the top quarterbacks ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft running April 25-27.
The Patriots hold the third overall pick and, barring a trade down or an unforeseen selection, are widely expected to take a QB in the first round. After breaking down LSU senior and Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels on Monday, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, a projected top-3 pick, is up next.
Pick a playbook. Or an offense. Or even an era.
No matter your preference or period of football history, Drake Maye fits. He is a timeless prospect.
The redshirt sophom*ore stands a sturdy 6-foot-4 and 223 pounds. He can make every throw both inside and out of structure. He’s accurate, decisive and tough, checking all of the traditional boxes and modern must-haves, including playmaking and mobility.
Maye is cut from the same prototypical cloth as Justin Herbert and Josh Allen, former top-10 picks who also carried rare physical traits and questions about their consistency. The chief question with Maye, whose 2022 tape out-shone last year’s film, is twofold: how much of his drop-off can be attributed to a weaker supporting cast and how much did that supporting cast inspire him to overcompensate with more dangerous play?
The 21-year-old is dripping with potential. Maye’s arm talent matches or exceeds every other prospect in this year’s class. He plays on time and carves up the middle of the field, a strong indicator of pro success. He varies speeds, ripping throws with straight-line velocity and lofting high-arching touch passes when necessary.
Maye also create yards from nothing. He scrambles well and can duck away from pressure before slinging completions from various arm angles to all distances. Though his ability to conjure completions some passers never dream of cuts both ways. Maye will often eschew the sure thing for the spectacular, and incur greater risk of turnovers and sacks.
Maye must trim his pressure-to-sack rate, and nail more easy throws underneath. Overshoot too many layups, and your coaches come calling. Nay, screaming.
But generally, Maye elevated his offense, game after game, and in both seasons, with his rare tools and playmaking. NFL evaluators must now decide whether Maye chases the dreams too often instead of settling for a checkdown reality. And can his ball placement and footwork be tightened up?
Most of Maye’s interceptions in college were well-earned, yet his turnover-worthy play percentage actually dipped from 2022 to last year, per Pro Football Focus; meaning while the temptation to play hero ball increased, the damage Maye inflicted with interceptions and fumbles went down.
Increasingly, the quarterback position is becoming less classically trained musician and more classically trained jazz performer. The best play with a disciplined creativity, knowing when to wield their improvisational genius and when to resist their inner muse and simply play the notes in front of them. Quarterbacks without such tools, daring and creativity are hard-capped in the modern game, shut out from forever joining the NFL’s elites.
But Maye, as Patriots coach Jerod Mayo declared last month, has no ceiling. Still, his floor nonetheless remains a concern, particularly if his next team doesn’t support him or teach him when to ignore his muse.
After viewing all of Maye’s throws and runs from the 2023 season, let’s dive deeper into his potential as a franchise quarterback with the help of two NFL executives, who gave their own takes on the young QB.
At a glance
A four-star high school recruit from Charlotte, Maye sat behind future Commanders draft pick Sam Howell as a freshman in 2021. He broke out the following season, winning ACC Player of the Year, Offensive Player of the Year and First-Team All-ACC honors. Maye finished top-five in major college football with 4,321 passing yards and 38 passing touchdowns around seven interceptions. He completed 66.2% of his passes and also led the team in rushing, with 698 yards and seven rushing touchdowns.
Last year, surrounded by subpar receiving talent and pass protection, while working the controls of a new scheme, Maye landed on the All-ACC second team. He completed 63.3% of his passes for 3,608 yards, 24 touchdowns and nine interceptions. As a runner, he totaled 449 yards and nine touchdowns.
Maye hails from a sports family, with two brothers (Luke and Beau) who played basketball at North Carolina, where his father played football. Another brother, Cole, won a national title playing baseball at Florida. According to multiple executives with different teams, Maye thoroughly impressed during his combine interviews, showing a command of the room, Xs and Os, and the good and bad of his college film.
What the film says
Arm talent
Spectacular. Maye can access all levels of the field and hit every route, whether on or off-platform. He is willing and able to change speeds and arm angles. His talent is rare.
Accuracy
Maye’s accuracy is well above average, though within the context of a top-3 pick, he gets dinged here. His short misses — most often throwing too far ahead of out-breaking routes and behind in-breakers — don’t always stem from sloppy footwork, so he may simply need more reps to grow out of these incompletions. Or, they’re a built-in bug of his game.
Otherwise, Maye hits receivers in stride on deep and intermediate routes as well as any quarterback in this class. He understands when to use a soft touch and when to rifle throws between closing windows or against tight coverage. Some of the latter completions are jaw-dropping.
Pocket presence
Maye’s pocket presence dipped at the end of last season but improved overall, while North Carolina fielded worse offensive line talent within a questionable scheme. He kept his eyes downfield in the face of pressure, hoping an open receiver springs free. He proved he can play with timing and reset his base after facing initial pressure.
Maye instinctively drifts away from unblocked blitzers — who breached North Carolina’s pocket far too often last year — but occasionally took direct hits, which must have stemmed from a lack of awareness and/or missed blocking assignments.
Decision-making
Maye is an attacking quarterback. He hunts deep throws whenever available, and particularly when he’s well-protected. He also protects the ball well, posting a 1.8% turnover-worthy play percentage last season, per PFF; which in the NFL would have tied for lowest in the league among starters.
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Maye is a selective scrambler, preferring to throw first, but when he takes off, he's aggressive as a ball carrier, too. He will need to slide and seek the sideline more often in the pros, and hit more checkdowns versus pressure. Some back-footed deep balls Maye got away with in college — including for touchdowns — won't be available to him in the NFL.
Toughness
No doubts here. Maye can take a hit in the pocket and when scrambling. He bounces back from big hits and bad plays. He's strong on quarterback sneaks, as well. Maye has the respect of his teammates (two-time captain), and, by all accounts, his opponents, too.
Playmaking
Maye isn't nearly the athlete Jayden Daniels is, but he's far more creative outside the pocket.
While Daniels is perpetually running to scramble, as a straight-line runner with explosive speed, Maye runs to scramble andextend plays. Several of his deepest completions came off extended plays, and Maye will also eat up free rushing yards whenever the middle of the pocket opens, especially on third down. He's a strong, physical runner who also regularly beat defenders to the edge last season.
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That playmaking also speaks to sack avoidance, a critical skill for quarterbacks. Maye's pressure-to-sack ratio is higher than ideal, but time and coaching may smooth that out.
Vision
Maye is capable of moving through progressions to find an open receiver. North Carolina's offensive system did not require much of that last season, when he was sometimes sped up when pressured. Maye did, however, flash the potential to diagnose pressure pre and post-snap, another area where he should improve when playing within a system that offers him more built-in answers against the blitz.
What the stats say
The Herald's Doug Kyed pulled accuracy percentage, average depth of target, big-time throw rate, turnover-worthy play rate and run grade from PFF and EPA per play (expected points added) from CollegeFootballData.com from the 16 top quarterbacks of the 2024 NFL Draft class, then standardized and averaged them into a single spreadsheet.
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The spreadsheet says ...
Maye ranks second overall in this quarterback class, trailing only Jayden Daniels. He ranked seventh in accuracy rate, second in average depth of target, second in big-time throw rate, third-best in turnover-worthy play rate, ninth in run grade and ninth in EPA/play.
After Daniels and Maye, Michigan's JJ McCarthy was third overall, Washington's Michael Penix Jr. was fourth, USC's Caleb Williams finished sixth, and Oregon's Bo Nix was eighth.
Maye ranked third in PFF's deep passing grade this season, going 40-of-84 for an FBS-best 1,452 yards, 13 touchdowns and four interceptions on targets of 20-plus yards. His 66.5 overall grade under pressure ranked 10th out of 104 qualified FBS quarterbacks and below Daniels and McCarthy, but ahead of Williams and Penix. His pressure-to-sack rate of 18.8% ranked 60th, better than Williams and Daniels, worse than McCarthy's,and in line with his 18.2% mark from 2022.
Maye's clean-pocket offensive grade ranked eighth overall in college football, trailing Williams, Daniels and Penix but ahead of McCarthy. His 2.7-second average time from snap to throw was middle-of-the-pack, but was one of the fastest times among elite quarterback prospects; better then Williams, Daniels and McCarthy.
Verdict
Maye possesses every trait required of modern franchise quarterbacks. His tape is littered with NFL throws and playmaking. No, he's not perfect, and yes, he might bust out for reasons evident on the same tape that makes him look like a future star.
But this is the type of player front offices should covet and bet on at the top of the draft. Maye is more than worthy of the No. 3 overall pick.
