Was Drake Maye a good college player?

This season the Patriots selected quarterback Drake Maye third overall in the 2024 NFL draft. Maye was a highly regarded prospect out of the University of North Carolina, Maye is a 6 ‘5 quarterback weighing 220 pounds with amazing arm strength exemplified by his 8,018 passing yards through his Freshman and Sophomore years in college.  He is not a completely one-dimensional quarterback as seen by his 1,585 rushing yards in college.  Maye finished top 10 in Heisman voting in 2022, his Freshman year, but this is to be expected because North Carolina is usually a subpar football program.  Overall Drake Maye definitely deserved his status as a top-three pick in the NFL after his college performance.

First Start

Drake Maye made his first official NFL start on October 13th against the Houston Texans. To many this seemed to be a controversial decision because it mirrored the way Mac Jones became the starter, many analysts think that throwing a rookie quarterback into an already struggling offense can only cause them to lose confidence. This is because if an offense is already struggling, the introduction of a rookie quarterback shouldn’t be able to put out the fire. All things considered, Maye played pretty well against an upper-echelon NFL team. Maye threw 20/33 with 243 passing yards and three touchdown passes, he did have two interceptions but that is to be expected from a young quarterback. 

Season Outlook

Even though I would love to write about Drake Maye being the quarterback to lead us to an amazing season and turn the season around, that is just not likely. The Patriots just simply have too many holes in their team to be saved by just one player. The future surely is bright for the young quarterback but Patriots fans should not be disappointed to see Drake Maye’s starts not translate into wins. Final verdict, it is too early to tell what the rest of Maye’s career will look like but Patriots fans should be optimistic that this is our guy.