The distinction between NFL fans, and football fans, is never more apparent than with draft hype. Each year, experts laud some schmuck quarterback whose archetype fits their formula as a franchise savior, and NFL fans inhale the assessment so often, so blindly that they really believe Drake Maye is a better prospect than Caleb Williams.
The North Carolina quarterback doesn’t have a Heisman, never won 10 games, and only has one win against a top-25 team. The win in question came against this year’s 6-7 Miami team before their annual regression to obscurity. While Maye served just two years as the Tar Heels’ starter, he couldn’t beat a down Clemson program, or a bottom-feeding Georgia Tech school.
The best team in the ACC this season, Florida State, wasn’t even on UNC’s schedule the past two years, yet Maye and Mack Brown still failed to win 10 games in either of his two campaigns under center. Think about that for a second. The Seminoles went undefeated, and the selection committee treated FSU as if they ran the table in the AAC.
That’s the level of competition Maye faced during his college career, but, yeah, ignore all that because he’s 6-foot-5 and comes from a family of athletes. Last time I checked Chris Simms looked like an NFL quarterback and still blew chunks when he reached the league.
The only legacy Maye will continue is that of idiotic scouts talking even more idiotic front offices into drafting a guy purely on spec. From Trey Lance to Daniel Jones, Mitch Trubisky, and Paxton Lynch, there’s no shortage of first-round quarterbacks that manifest into busts simply because a scout sold his general manager a bill of goods.
Maybe instead of pleasuring yourself to that 20-yard out route, rewatch the UNC-NC State games from the past two years when Drake the Great went a combined 51-of-89 for 487 yards, three TDs, three picks, and two losses. The Wolfpack possessed the ACC’s second- and third-stingiest defense in 2022 and 2023, respectively, so check out those if you want to see how he fared against quality competition.
North Carolina spent half the season on the CW, so I doubt very few, if any, of these NFL fans watched Maye with regularity. If they did, they’d see a guy who looks freaking amazing when things are going well, but can’t find his ass, or a receiver, when the cards go cold.
On the other side of the coin, Williams faced a stacked deck all year at USC, with a defense as miserable as North Carolina’s, without Jordan Addison, against far greater competition, and still, the Trojans were No. 3 in the country in scoring. Ditto for 2022 when the Lincoln Riley product lifted the Heisman.
I know Williams put some flaws on tape this year, but he was forced to freelance due to the sieve-like nature of the USC defense. If it’s a toss-up, I’d rather have a QB who tried to do too much — and succeeded at a rate far better than most — than the other guy.
Yes, Williams will learn quickly that injuries pile up when he goes full Superman at the next level. However, his instincts for off-schedule playmaking are some of the best I’ve ever witnessed on a college football field.
What is Drake Maye’s career highlight? One quarterback was out there running around like Patrick Mahomes Lite, and the other lost to 3-9 Virginia while only doing enough to preserve his draft stock. Seriously, what are we doing? The draft analysis is just beginning, and I already want to puncture my eardrums with a ballpoint pen.
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#prefers #Drake #Maye #Caleb #Williams #moron
