I think with Maye you have to let ownership know in advance that this is a 3 year high risk prospect who needs a lot of time to develop. I’d also let ownership know that this is a home run swing and there is no floor. That was the case when the Bills drafted Josh Allen. He looked awful in year 1, decidedly below average in year 2, and then became who he is in year 3. Ownership has to understand the risk they would take with Maye. Compounding things is you have absolutely nothing on offense right now and this is a historically great WR class you would be passing at the top. I am torn between trading back and getting a massive haul for the pick vs taking Maye and devoting the next 3 years to improving the offense around him. It's tough because there is no guarantee he can fix his issues. Allen did but Allen is the rare breed of QB who rebounded from two bad first years in the league.
So why am I so concerned about Drake Maye?
1) Ball Placement and Accuracy.
Your bread and butter in the NFL is being able to execute in the pocket. Maye is going to fail if he can’t generate better ball placement and accuracy. What he has now is going to lead to turnovers and drive stoppers in the NFL. If you're curious about this I have a stupidly long thread of his cutups in my slack group that show just how bad/inconsistent his accuracy is. DM me and I can guide you to the thread. The dude can't throw it correctly to a receiver moving horizontally. He is always behind. Part of that is mechanics but part of that could be he just lacks anticipating where a guy will be if they are moving left to right vs vertically. Accuracy is hard to fix! Ball placement is hard to fix! For every beautiful deep fade he nails he will have 3-4 outright misses on routine plays. He seriously can't throw a fucking out right to save his life! He makes the routine look hard and the hard look routine. His deep accuracy is also spotty. To a degree everyone's is but he has too many throws that are 5-10 yards overthrown or OOB. Giant caveat that there are clips where he actually does all of this well - the issue is consistency. Consistency is crucial to good QB play though!
1b) Accuracy on the move is spotty
For a guy who makes his living throwing on the run he misses way too many open throws on the go. Oh he will hit his fair share but he misses way more than you would think given his lofty stats. As usual the ones he misses are going... left to right
(Hint: watch him vs NC State and Clemson, i.e. better competition).
2) Footwork
Part of why Maye is so inaccurate is his footwork sucks. He drifts into pressure so much. He makes life so much more difficult for himself because of his happy feet. He is captain heel-click. Not just that but he drifts AWAY from his protection. It's maddening. You do this in the NFL and you will be getting sacked early and often. There are times when the protection is a slide to the left and he drifts so far right he is passed the RT and gives the edge rusher a free look at him. Yes, that bad! No it wasn't a naked bootleg either. He needs to completely tear down and rebuild his footwork from the ground up. Too often his feet are not set or not right when he is throwing the ball leading to inaccurate passes.
3) Hitch in his delivery
He has a bit of a windup which impacts when he gets the ball out. That could be why he is behind guys too. It's just one more thing to fix. Remember, now we are fixing his upper and lower body mechanics! Fun stuff for a guy who some have as the best QB prospect coming out since T-Law.
4) Doesn't know when to throw the ball away
Drake Maye plays hero ball and it leads to some risky throws. He needs to learn when to throw it away and live to play another down. He makes throws that he can get away with in college and maybe in the NFL too with his arm strength but the quality of defenders he will face in the NFL are so much better than the ACC.
5) Doesn't get the ball out on time or throw with enough anticipation.
There are clips where his first read is open and he double clutches. This happened a lot vs NC State and vs Clemson - when he was facing better competition. I know his offense was bullshit this year and his receivers weren't as good but an open man is an open man and there are no excuses for not just hitting your open guy. Stay on schedule! Hesitation = death in the NFL. You don't have to be Tua but his timing and rhythm game is not at all where it needs to be. This might be the most concerning trait because if you don't trust your reads you're never going to succeed.
6) Doesn't always process post-snap movement.
This one applies to his in-pocket structure work but definitely applies to when he is on the go. He doesn't always know that an underneath or close-by defender he isn't locked onto can easily break off and pick him off. He had 1 pick and 2-3 dropped picks from this kind of stuff. It overlaps a little with his hero ball antics but it is the dark side to creating out of structure. You see this to a degree in structure too where he will miss robbers or dropped back ILBs.
Drake Maye's ability to create out of structure, his downfield accuracy (even though it has room for improvement), ability to go through progressions, his physical build and arm strength, and betting he can be more consistent are reasons to take him at 3. To get there though he needs a lot of work and he might not ever get there. This isn't even an exhaustive list of his negatives.
So would I take him at 3 or trade-back? It really depends on if ownership wants to take this risk or not and if they are in that this will be a 3 year experiment and the first 2 years might look bad.
