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Also, why should Packers fans care?
Early on in the run-up to the 2024 NFL Draft, Drake Maye was the consensus second-best quarterback in this year’s class, with a substantial number of analysts putting him above Caleb Williams. Maye’s ceiling is high and so there are still a few who have him on that tier, but for the most part, he’s seen his stock start to sink.
Although he’s still often the second quarterback off the board, it’s no longer quite so unanimous. So what exactly is going on here? Let’s take a look.
You can see Maye’s overall QWOBA+ ranking here, and his Draft Sheet stats here. Any questions about QBOPS/QWOBA? Check the glossary!
Maye is in some ways a throwback. NFL front offices and coaching staffs alike have long preferred big, tall, strong-armed passers, and Maye is all of those things. There are very few scouts who will look at Maye’s tape and not exclaim “that guy’s a quarterback.” Maye’s arm is an easy 70 on the 20-80 scale, his highlight reel is full of impressive playmaking, and this will be his age 22 season, making him one of the youngest quarterbacks available. So, what’s the problem?
I’ve touched on Maye a bit before in this post, but the short answer is that despite all of the high-ceiling traits Maye has, he also has the single biggest red flag a quarterback can have: poor accuracy. There are many excuses for Maye, as there are for all quarterbacks who struggle with completion percentage, but the bottom line is that in 2023, for quarterbacks with at least 250 attempts, Maye finished 65th in completion percentage. Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman finished just ahead of Maye, while Central Florida’s John Rhys Plumlee finished just behind.
We will get to the excuses in a moment, but the first is always that Maye had poor receivers compared to his peers. This is true in 2023, where Maye’s average completion found a receiver with a 66 PFF grade (about FBS average). However, out of the 15 draft eligible quarterbacks I’ve tracked on my QBOPS draft sheet this year, only Wisconsin’s Tanner Mordecai threw to worse receivers (62.69).
The problem with this excuse is that this was not Maye’s only season as a starter. In 2022, Maye’s receivers (primarily Josh Downs, now of the Colts, and Antoine Green, now of the Lions) were excellent, ranking 8th overall in WRGPC at 71.82. Despite the outstanding receiving corps he enjoyed two years ago, Maye could only manage a marginally better 66.2% completion percentage, which ranked 31st, and while he was within striking distance of CJ Stroud (29th) and Caleb Williams (27th), he wasn’t doing as much damage as either of them overall, as Stroud and Williams averaged over 9 yards per attempt while Maye settled at 8.36. I adjust for receiver quality, and once you do, his...
