This is what we’ve been waiting for, fantasy football enthusiasts. The NFL Draft is under way, and we finally get to see where the rookie prospects are going to launch their professional careers. And NFL Draft landing spots allow us to start to zero in on fantasy football and dynasty rookie draft pick values. Here, we’ll break down Drake Maye and his fit with the New England Patriots.
Throughout the draft, we’ll take a closer look at fantasy-relevant prospects, giving you an overview of their strengths and weaknesses, and assessing their fantasy value in both redraft and dynasty formats.
Let’s dig in.
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- DBro’s Dynasty Rookie Draft Primers
- 2024 NFL Draft Guide
Fantasy Football Rookie Draft Outlook
Fitz’s Fantasy Football Outlook
The New England Patriots are charting a new course with Drake Maye as the helmsman of their offense after selecting him with the third overall pick of the NFL Draft.
A University of North Carolina product, the 21-year-old Maye started for the Tar Heels the last two seasons. He was the ACC player of the Year in 2022, throwing for 4,321 yards and 38 touchdowns in 14 games, with seven interceptions. Maye also ran for 698 yards and seven touchdowns that year.
There was some statistical slippage for Maye in 2023, as he transitioned from offensive coordinator Phil Longo’s Air Raid offense to the more conventional offense preferred by Longo’s successor, Chip Lindsey. In his final season at Chapel Hill, Maye threw for 3,608 yards and 24 touchdowns in 12 games, with nine interceptions. He ran for 449 yards and nine touchdowns.
Maye has a nearly ideal NFL toolkit with regard to size, arm strength and mobility. He measures 6-4, 223 pounds. Maye has a powerful arm, and he’s more than just a one-pitch pitcher, able to either drive the ball into tight spaces with high velocity or feather a throw with a softer touch, depending on the situation. Maye is a willing and able runner with the speed and agility to elude would-be tacklers, and the size and strength to power through arm tackles. He’ll add value as a runner in fantasy.
If there’s a knock on Maye, it’s that his decision-making can be suspect, and he can be guilty of trying to do too much. Maye can make some curious choices about throwing to traffic or vacating the pocket prematurely. He’s fumbled 10 times over the last two seasons. And as Dane Brugler of The Athletic notes, Maye had a 39-4 touchdown-to-interception ratio in the first half of games during his college career and a 24-12 ratio in the second half.
Maye walks into a difficult situation. The Patriots ranked 30th in total offense last year. They have one of the weakest groups of pass catchers in the league, and PFF graded the Patriots 31st in pass blocking last season. Maye will nevertheless be a coveted asset in dynasty leagues, but it’s hard to see him having significant value in redraft leagues as a rookie.
As a toolsy QB prospect with top-three draft capital, Maye should be top-five draft pick in superflex dynasty rookie drafts. He could go as early as 1.02, behind only No. 1 draft pick Caleb Williams, but some dynasty managers will prefer the rushing upside of Jaden Daniels, and some will prefer the relative safety of the top two WR prospects, Marchin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers.
In redraft leagues, Maye is either a low-end QB2 or high-end QB3. He won’t be draftable in smaller leagues or leagues with shallow benches, but his combination of arm talent and rushing potential makes him worth a draft pick in deep leagues.
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Thor’s NFL Draft Profile & Player Comp
Drake Maye (North Carolina)
6043/223 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Mashup of Carson Palmer and Carson Wentz (“Carson Pentz”)
Maye is a big, strapping pocket passer with a howitzer arm.
When Maye has his base under him and he steps into his throws, he’s extremely, extremely accurate. You particularly appreciate the downfield touch, fitting balls into very small spots way down the field on time.
Maye’s supreme arm talent has imbedded a fearlessness in him, a conviction that any ball that leaves his hand will get there. If you had to bet your life on one quarterback spinning a heat-ring spiral into a microscopic window 15 yards downfield, you would choose Maye. Over the last two seasons, Maye had a sterling 93.3 PFF grade on 110 attempts over the middle. Not only is he experienced at these sorts of throws, but he’s proven.
Maye’s rushing utility has been overblown; that won’t translate to the NFL level. He’s an extremely tough kid who will chip in on short-yardage and goal-line situations in the NFL and not embarrass himself when keeping on the rare read-option, but that’s about it.
You want Maye in the pocket. He needs that sturdy platform under him. Anything the defense can do to effect that increases the odds of an inaccurate throw or a wonky decision. Maye is good at manipulating the pocket early in the rep to keep himself out of harm’s way and keep a throwing runway in front of him. That also allows him to climb the pocket to fire a dart a few beats later if a speed rusher is beginning to breach a tackle’s outside shoulder.
When Maye has a halo around him when he starts throwing, he’s stepping into it and firing a pill. This is when he looks like a potential NFL star. He’s a fastball thrower with a 100-mph heater in the intermediate range. From an NFL perspective, this is one of the most encouraging parts of his eval.
But I noticed in Maye’s tape a propensity to speed through his throwing motion and/or forget his feet under the threat of a collapsing pocket. This habit may have, in some parts, formed from Maye’s lack of acceleration and lateral agility, which make it non-viable to attempt to escape sticky situations on foot.
The wrench that speeding up his motion threw into his mechanics had a tendency to cause Maye to lose complete control of the balls he was throwing, leading to errancy. Maye completed only 43.3% of his 90 passes under pressure last season for a 7/5 TD/INT rate. He was sacked 28 times. Collegiate coordinators knew that the way you make Maye mortal was to turn up the heat on him. Of the top nine quarterbacks on this list, Maye was the only one whose accuracy percentage was under 71% while blitzed (66.4%).
In these situations, Maye’s mechanical foibles are exacerbated by processing glitches. He sees the field very well in clean pockets, but his vision can constrict under pressure. This is especially true when he gets a coverage look he wasn’t expecting after the snap. He speeds up very quickly, leading to YOLO decisions.
In 2022, Maye lit the College Football world on fire with a 9-1 start. Things took a turn when UNC hosted 4-6 Georgia Tech on Nov. 19. The Yellow Jackets, down to a rotation of their QB3 and QB4, roared back from a 17-0 deficit to upset UNC 21-17 by harassing and frustrating Maye into a discombobulated mess. Maye failed to record a TD and threw for a season-low 202 yards while posting 16th-percentile EPA/pass. He was sacked six times, three by Keion White, with his YPA plummeting to 5.0 on pressures.
The next week, UNC was once again upset at home, this time by 7-4 NC State. NCSU also made Maye look human – 29-for-49 for 233 yards and a 1/1 TD/INT – but they did it very differently. Instead of ramping up the heat, NC State dropped eight players into coverage. Maye spent the day in a state of confusion. Multiple times, he simply did not see a wide-open receiver in the back of the end zone.
The Tar Heels went on to lose their next two games, finishing on a four-game skid. Then, Maye regressed a bit statistically in 2023 when moving out of former OC Phil Longo’s quarterback-friendly system with heavy doses of downfield shots into a more conventional attack.
When things are going well, and Maye is afforded clean pockets, watch him cook. His accuracy, touch, and velocity all consistently impress when he has that sturdy base under him. His arm will force teams to play two-deep safeties, which he can turn around and make them pay for by exploiting the space he’s given in the intermediate range.
A third-year prospect, Maye is young, with only two years of starting experience. Whether he turns into an NFL star will come down to whether he can improve his processing under pressure and against exotic coverage looks. He’s not a perfect prospect, and his risk profile is a bit higher than has been depicted. Still, the ceiling is there to become a perennial Pro Bowler if things break right.
Check out more NFL Draft profiles and player comps from Thor in our 2024 NFL Draft Guide
Dynasty Rookie Draft Rankings
Our analysts provide their latest rookie draft rankings below. And also check out our expert consensus dynasty rookie draft rankings!
More Dynasty Rookie Draft Advice
- DBro’s Dynasty Rookie Draft Primers
- DBro’s Top 50 Rankings & Player Notes
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