Drake Maye is the ultimate ‘draft and develop’ investment at quarterback

The Patriots’ new roster construction approach fits perfectly with their new quarterback.

When the New England Patriots handed the keys to their organization over to Eliot Wolf and Jerod Mayo in their roles as director of scouting and head coach, respectively, they also committed to a new roster construction approach.

Whereas the team seemingly explored every avenue under the previous Bill Belichick-led regime, they would now focus primarily on drafting and developing players from within. Given Wolf’s background with the Green Bay Packers, where his father Ron was a Hall of Fame executive, this is no particular surprise.

From that perspective, the Patriots’ first-round draft pick fits to a T.

Drake Maye, who spent the last two years as the starting quarterback at North Carolina, is as promising a player as any in this year’s draft. He has the size and the arm talent few players — including some currently active NFL quarterbacks — possess.

He also is quite raw. His mechanics can be on and off, and his lack of experience is apparent. Belichick himself pointed this out on draft night while working as an analyst for ESPN.

If ever there was a high-profile Patriots draft pick in need of some serious development to reach his ceiling, Maye was it. Wolf and Mayo are not oblivious to that fact either, but they are confident they have the supporting structure in place to nurture his undeniable talent.

“Meeting with Coach [Alex] Van Pelt, Coach [Ben] McAdoo, Coach [T.J.] McCartney and talking through some of the development that he needed, some of the things they thought they could tighten up or fix in some cases,” said Wolf in response to a question about Maye being able to move past some of his current shortcomings.

“At the end of the day, we felt comfortable with those things and really betting on the talent and the kid. Drake is a relentless worker from all the indications that we have, and he’s going to be able to overcome some of the things in the areas that he needs to improve.”

Maye has shown that he can play grade-A football at the quarterback position. However, there was a certain streakiness to his game during his time at North Carolina.

Maye had a tendency to drift around the pocket and not keep a steady base, especially when his process was sped up or he wanted to maneuver around to evade pressure. This led to some wide-spray misses even on what should normally be easy, high-percentage throws.

He also is underexperienced when it comes to dissecting information and can get into panic mode on occasion. Both those things are a direct result of him starting only 26 combines games in college, which again goes back to the need for development.

Does this automatically mean Maye’s timeline will look different and he has to begin his pro career on the bench, backing up veteran Jacoby Brissett? For Jerod Mayo, that does not necessarily have to be the case.

“They try to put time tables on it, but you just never know when that time is going to be,” Mayo said on Thursday night. “If you look over the history of the league, sometimes guys, they can go in there and start Game 1 and have a Pro Bowl season. Then other guys they sit for two or three years and they have a great season or great career, but it can also go the other way: you sit for two years and have a terrible career.

“I think it’s hard to really put a timeline on when he will be ready. I don’t want you guys to forget about the quarterbacks that we have on our roster, and it’s about competing and it’s about going out there every day striving to get better.”

For Maye, getting better mostly means more steadily applying the positive traits in his game. After all, he can do all those things mentioned as areas of inconsistency above at an exceptionally high level as well — and a lot more, too. He is just not doing them at an NFL level yet, where every game and every play command a high level of preparation and execution.

Plays like this one are what make Maye such an enticing prospect. Even as a sophomore he already showed the natural arm talent and ability to make NFL-caliber plays: he calmly moves up the pocket to evade pressure, buys his receiver time, and delivers a pin-point strike to where only his intended target can get the ball in stride.

In order to have success at the next level, Maye will need to build on moments such as these — something he could not always do during his two-year starting career with the Tar Heels. His 2023 season in particular was worrisome in that regard given that he never quite took the next step and seemingly started to hit a plateau in his development.

How much of that was due to a change in supporting cast, both on the sidelines and on the field was an estimation the Patriots had to make. In the end, though, the positives won out: his potential to become an elite quarterback in the NFL, and the franchise QB New England has been lacking since Tom Brady’s departure following the 2019 season.

And it is not hard to see why the Patriots were buying into that.

Ultimately, the Patriots bought themselves a lottery ticket that may have slightly lower odds of being a winner than others but a payoff substantially more impressive. In Year 1 of a rebuild, that was a gamble the team was willing to take.

“We’re not sitting here saying that Drake is our starting quarterback. I think he understands that. He understands the things that he has to get better at,” said Mayo.

“You can talk about potential all you want to. Until you reach it, it really doesn’t matter. We know the man. We know the man is a hard worker, and he’s going to do everything he can to be successful.”

At the end of the day, that is why the Patriots drafted him. And why they are now invested in his development.