With the NFL Draft less than a week away, most of the attention is centered on where the quarterbacks will land. It's widely expected that USC's Caleb Williams will be selected first overall by the Chicago Bears, but the Washington Commanders' target at No. 2 is up in the air.
There's been a lot of smoke around LSU's Jayden Daniels, but there's also been a bit of a recent swing back toward North Carolina's Drake Maye. Ahead of the draft, Maye's college coach, Mack Brown, is hitting the interview circuit to make the case for his guy.
"If his mom and dad would let me, I'd adopt him," Brown said during an appearance on The Jim Rome Show. "He is a great person. He's competitive. He's grown up in an athletic family. His mom was a college athlete. His dad was the leading passer in the ACC. He's got two brothers that won national championships -- one in baseball at Florida, one at basketball here. He's got another brother that was on our basketball team.
"He's the youngest of four, so he's been beaten up. He had to fight to get a chicken leg at the table. He's so competitive in everything he does. He's smart. He's got pride. He is so passionate about football that he does everything right in his life to make sure that he is going to play the best he can play."
Brown did acknowledge that there might be a single negative to Maye's prospect profile, but even spun that as a potential positive.
"If there's a negative for him, he's played two years," Brown said. "Most of these guys have played five and six years because of COVID. He's only had two. So, what I see in that is that he's accomplished national player of the year in only two years. What he's got is the upside is unbelievable because he can improve so much -- every year. And I don't think there's any question. You got to get with the right team. You got to have the right coaches, but he's a guy that can win a Super Bowl at quarterback."
During his career at North Carolina, Maye completed 618 of 952 passes (64.9%) for 8,018 yards (8.4 per attempt) for 63 touchdowns and 16 interceptions while also rushing 302 times for 1,209 yards and 16 scores. (College rushing stats include sacks, so those numbers are a bit different than they would be in the NFL.) Notably, Williams threw 1,099 college passes and had 289 rushes, while Daniels had 1,438 pass attempts and 617 runs. So, Maye is a bit less experienced than them, but it's not by a significant margin. He is a year younger than Williams and two years younger than Daniels, though, so there could be some more room for him to grow.
