With the NFL Draft less than a week away, most of the focus is on where the quarterbacks will land. USC’s Caleb Williams is widely expected to be selected first overall by the Chicago Bears, but the Washington Commanders’ target at second overall is uncertain.
There’s been a lot of smoke surrounding LSU’s Jayden Daniels, but there’s also been a slight recent move toward North Carolina’s Drake Maye. Before the draft, Maye’s college coach, Mack Brown, hit the interview circuit to make his man’s case.
“If his mom and dad would let me, I would adopt him,” Brown said during a appearance on the Jim Rome Show. “He’s a great person. He’s competitive. He grew up in an athletic family. His mother was a college athlete. His father was the ACC’s leading passer. He has two brothers who won national championships , including one in baseball in Florida, a basketball player here. He has another brother who was on our basketball team.
“He’s the youngest of four, so he was beaten. He had to fight to get a chicken leg at the table. He’s so competitive in everything he does. He’s smart. He is proud. He is so passionate about football that he does everything right in his life to make sure he plays the best he can.”
Brown acknowledged that there might be one negative in Maye’s prospect profile, but he even framed it as a potentially positive.
“If there’s a negative for him, he played two years,” Brown said. “Most of these guys played five or six years because of COVID. He only played two. So what I see in that is he was named a national player of the year in just two years. What he has is the upside is incredible because he can improve so much – every year. good team, you have to have the right coaches, but this is a guy who can win a Super Bowl as a quarterback.”
During his career at North Carolina, Maye completed 618 of 952 passes (64.9%) for 8,018 yards (8.4 per attempt) for 63 touchdowns and 16 interceptions while rushing 302 times for 1,209 yards and 16 scores. (College rushing stats include sacks, so these numbers are a bit different than the NFL’s.) Notably, Williams threw 1,099 college passes and had 289 carries, while Daniels had 1,438 pass attempts and 617 points. So Maye is a little less experienced than them, but not by a long shot. He is, however, a year younger than Williams and two years younger than Daniels, so there could be even more room to grow.