The New England Patriots selected former North Carolina Tar Heels quarterback Drake Maye with the No. 3 overall pick in the NFL Draft in hopes that he would blossom into a franchise quarterback for the team. But in a pretty horrible turn of events for Maye, it sounds like he’s getting out-performed by another quarterback that was selected in the sixth round.
According to a report from Ben Volin of the Boston Globe, former Tennessee Volunteers starting quarterback Joe Milton has been outperforming Drake Maye in training camp this month.
“I wrote after last Thursday’s practice that Milton is the ‘wow’ quarterback at camp — the guy with the best size, best athleticism, and biggest arm. Now I’ll take it a step further: Milton outplayed Maye over the first six practices of camp. You can’t tell which player is the No. 3 overall pick (Maye) and which is the sixth-round flier (Milton),” Volin wrote for the Boston Globe this week.
As Volin explained, Maye has struggled at times and hasn’t looked all that impressive while Milton has shined despite far fewer reps with the team.
“Maye is running second on the depth chart and getting a ton of work, but he hasn’t made many noteworthy throws. He was the only quarterback not to throw a touchdown pass in a red zone drill Tuesday, while Milton, in limited reps, threw touchdowns on consecutive plays, one on a drag to Polk and another on an RPO slant to JuJu Smith-Schuster,” Volin wrote.
“In the red zone/two-minute situation, Maye had an ugly, off-platform throw that went way wide of Smith-Schuster, a hospital ball to tight end Mitchell Wilcox that got him sandwiched between two defenders, and an incomplete corner fade to Javon Baker in the end zone that had the entire offense doing pushups. Meanwhile, Milton wows the crowd every day with his tantalizing arm and standing backflips. After Maye struggled in the red zone, Milton promptly came in and completed a nice pass to Kawaan Baker on the sideline.”
It sounds like the Patriots might have found a star quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft, but not the one everyone expected.
