Field Yates on Drake Maye: 'I do believe has a chance to become the best quarterback in this class'

After ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. dropped his NFL Mock Draft 3.0, he and his fellow draft experts at the company discussed his view on how the 2024 version would shake out.

Kiper does his mock drafts with the rule of no projected trades. And with that being the case, his top three picks have remained the same with quarterbacks Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Drake Maye getting selected in that order by Chicago, Washington, and New England. However, as of late, there have been rumblings that the Patriots might be considering trading out of the No. 3 spot and collecting a significant amount of draft capital. While that does sound good in theory to some, Kiper’s below draft analyst, Field Yates, believes that New England should tread with caution in making that decision.

“The fact that Minnesota has already moved up the board to pick No. 23 on top of pick No. 11 suggests that there will definitely be teams interested in moving all the way up to pick No. 3 with the Patriots,” said Yates about the possibility of a team willing to trade New England for the No. 3 pick. “The calculation they must make in his organization is; ‘alright, is the stockpile of picks to move away from pick No. 3 greater than the opportunity to grab a player in Drake Maye?’ Who I fully believe can be a long-time franchise starting quarterback for the Patriots.”

Ahead of the 2023 season, may was widely considered as the only quarterback who could rival Williams for the chance to be the number one overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. But after struggles late in the season, there have been more questions brought to the forefront on Maye. That has been accompanied by the shortcomings of the 2021 quarterback draft class, which saw 5 quarterbacks selected in the 1st 15 picks. And as of today, 60 percent of those signal callers are no longer with the franchise that drafted them. All of this swirling together has dredged up some concerns for the Patriots, or at least their fan base, which Yates addressed as he continued.

“I get it; sometimes quarterbacks don’t work out in the first round of the NFL Draft. We had five in 2021 and three have already been traded; those were all top 15 picks. Finding a quarterback is the hardest task for any general manager in all of the NFL.”

“I would be very wary if I’m the Patriots about moving off of that third pick and bypassing the opportunity to take a player in Drake Maye who I do believe has a chance to become the best quarterback in this class.”

Maye has tremendous upside and ability at the quarterback position, which is why he was believed to be a strong possibility to overtake Williams at pick No. 1. So Yates’s assessment of him possibly becoming the best quarterback in the class is not that far-fetched. However, this Patriots regime must be careful not to do to Maye what was done to Mac Jones, who is one of the 2021 draftees Yates was referring to, and that is: fail to put the pieces around him in order for him to be successful. If New England can do that, the former North Carolina Tar Heels star could help usher in a new era of dominance for the AFC East franchise.