Drake Maye’s pro day was a good example of what these workouts have become leading up to the NFL draft. There was a throw that got out on social media from the North Carolina quarterback that, to put it nicely, was a little off. Maye’s target was running a route to the sideline, and the ball went so far over the receiver’s head that he didn’t even put his hands up for it. Predictably, the play got clipped on social media, and was used as an indictment against the 21-year-old.
Want the truth? It was part of a tough start that was shaken off very quickly.
In the end, Maye’s 70-plus throwing session confirmed what scouts already thought of him, including an AFC offensive coach who made the trip to Chapel Hill for Thursday’s throwing session.
“Yeah, he missed like two throws high early and then he was money the rest of the way,” he texted. “He’s so talented. He would be the No. 1 pick in like 80% of drafts.”
I followed up with this particular coach on the phone to dig a little deeper.
“He’s a puppy—he’s so young, he’s so talented, he can make every throw, he’s a freak,” the coach says. “[The workout] started out showing his ability to move, the tight, compact release. The ball jumps off his hand. He did a good job moving and throwing the ball off-balance. There were a couple off one foot. They did a nice job of having a lot of throws in there, a different variety of throws. He has no limitations.”
The coach then compared him to Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, in his belief that in his final year in college, the offense Herbert played in held him back in some ways, and forced him to carry the group in others. And while it manifested differently for the two of them—with Herbert, there weren’t a lot of bad plays, but there weren’t a lot of spectacular plays, either; with Maye, you had to take a bunch of bad plays with great ones—what it means for NFL teams is similar.
So, you have to be able to separate the player from his circumstances as best as you can. The upshot for Maye is—similar to Herbert—the physical potential is unquestionable.
“What I’m impressed with is how big he is,” says another offensive coach from an AFC team that was at the pro day. “You look at that Pro Bowl picture last year, somebody had it, the Mannings and all the Pro Bowl quarterbacks, and you see how small those guys are. Drake, I mean, he’s all of 6’4” and he’s big. I see him still getting there upper body-wise; that’s where he looks a little young, but he’s got a huge frame, and he can throw the hell out of the ball down the field. His arm strength, that’s a huge plus, especially if he goes somewhere like New England, out there late in the year.”
I then mentioned to this coach a throw that Maye made when he rolled right and seemed to throw with his feet off the ground, generating a ton of velocity while in a very imperfect body position. “He’s just a good all-around athlete,” the coach says. “That shouldn’t shock anybody, if you look at his family history. And you’re right, he’s got that spatial awareness, this depth perception, where it doesn’t have to be perfect.”
And it wasn’t perfect, to be sure. There were things to pick apart. But there’s also a belief from the NFL combine that this is a quarterback who will figure it out. In Indianapolis, he was at the top of the quarterback group in how he interviewed with teams, and also in how he interacted with other players from all walks, and naturally became a leader in that setting.
So what the pro day showed, sans a couple hiccups that led to ridiculous social-media-driven conclusions, is there’s a lot to work with—and that the best is probably yet to come.
