Rookie quarterback Drake Maye is officially a member of the New England Patriots after agreeing to his first contract with the team, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo.
As the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft, Maye will receive $36.6 million through the four-year term of his deal. The largest chunk of that comes from his signing bonus ($23.5 million).
The Patriots didn’t spring any last-minute surprises on the opening night of the draft. They had an obvious void at quarterback after trading Mac Jones to the Jacksonville Jaguars and they took the best QB on the board.
Many speculated whether New England would deal its first-rounder, but the front office clearly didn’t find an offer to its liking.
Maye, while highly regarded, is a somewhat polarizing prospect.
His junior season at North Carolina left something to be desired as he threw for 3,608 yards, 24 touchdowns and nine interceptions. The Tar Heels also started 6-0 before dropping four of their final six regular-season games with him at the helm.
Maye was the No. 1 overall player and top-ranked passer on Bleacher Report’s final big board, and B/R scout Derrik Klassen compared him to Los Angeles Chargers star Justin Herbert.
Klassen called him a “prototypical quarterback prospect” who possesses all of the necessary tools to succeed. There are nevertheless some noticeable flaws to his game.
“However, Maye does have moments where he doesn’t see or react to post-snap movement,” Klassen wrote. “In particular, late safety rotations don’t always trigger the response out of him that you’d like to see.
“Maye also has a little bit of Superman Syndrome. There are two or three plays a game where things break down and Maye feels the need to do something outrageous to salvage the play, rather than just move onto the next play or series. You don’t want Maye to lose his edge, but some of those plays must be cut out.”
When speaking to The Athletic’s Ben Standig in March, one quarterbacks coach was blunt when they said, “I like Maye, but when I see the amount of work it will take to have him reach his potential, we’ll be fired first.”
In a sense, that’s why selecting Maye was the perfect way for head coach Jerod Mayo and director of scouting Eliot Wolf to chart their own course in a post-Bill Belichick era.
Belichick opted for a relatively safe play with Jones and then steadily showed how not to build around a young quarterback. Maye is more of a developmental project and one who gives Mayo and Wolf and opportunity to show they can avoid making the same mistakes Belichick did.
If the former UNC star fulfills his potential, then New England can start thinking about the Super Bowl again.