Scouts Unsure How To Fix Drake Maye: ‘He Looks Like A Rookie, And Not A Particularly Good One’

A year ago, quarterbacks in the 2024 NFL Draft were all the rage. Drake Maye led the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl and was the MVP runner-up. Caleb Williams also helped the Chicago Bears win a division title and Jayden Daniels is a year removed from a surprise NFC Championship Game appearance with the Washington Commanders.

Now, not even a month into Year 3 for the six quarterbacks taken in the first round of the 2024 draft, some cracks are showing. Williams and Daniels have been sidelined with injurieswhile Michael Penix Jr. just came back from an ACL tear.

The biggest focus last week, however, was on Maye and JJ McCarthy. Maye has been perhaps the worst starting quarterback in the NFL through the first three weeks of the season, with the Patriots off to an 0-2 start. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Vikings scrapped McCarthy’s experiment and traded him to the New York Giants for a fifth-round pick.

Why is Maye performing so poorly and are his problems fixable? What should we make of the Giants’ trade for McCarthy? We asked those questions of people around the league, and many expressed concern for both quarterbacks.

Here’s more of what we learned about Maye and McCarthy from our conversations with league insiders.

Ralph Vacchiano: The New England Patriots have a lot of problems, but they never imagined that Drake Maye would be one of them. Their third-year quarterback has been terrible so far this season, and fixing him will be a lot easier said than done – just ask a few people around the league.

“He looks like a rookie, and not a particularly good one,” one AFC scout told me. “If he was anybody else, based on those three games, the (coaching) staff would say, ‘He’s just not ready yet.’

“But how can you say that about a guy who almost won the MVP?”

And that’s the problem the Patriots face as they try to figure out what’s wrong with their 24-year-old quarterback, who has thrown six interceptions and just one touchdown pass this season while missing two touchdowns and failing to throw for more than 208 yards in a single game. They know he can do it. He dragged them to the Super Bowl last season. He was essentially one vote away from beating Matthew Stafford for MVP.

Now, this season, “He looks lost,” another scout told me.

“His confidence is completely gone, and you can see why,” the scout added. “He’s making comical mistakes — like real rookie stuff. The ball out of his hand, pitching it to tightly covered receivers with no chain on the ball, not seeing any of the zone coverage and thinking a guy is open, not going into the pocket to avoid the rush, or getting into it.

“It seems like every other decision he makes is wrong.”

So what is the solution? It might be, as one NFL assistant coach told me, the one thing the Patriots really can’t afford.

“That’s the problem. You can’t bench him, even though he looks like a guy who needs a couple of weeks on the bench,” the coach told me. “What are you going to do, pull the guy who took you to the Super Bowl, the MVP runner-up, so he can watch Tommy DeVito play? That doesn’t do any good. You might lose him even more.

“They have to let him play with it. That’s all they can do. The problem is, now he doesn’t seem to be able to.”

Eric D. Williams: It seems like a long time ago, but New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye was the MVP runner-up last season for a reason.

Maye finished first in the NFL in passer rating (112.9), third in passing touchdowns (31) and fourth in passing yards (4,394). Maye also led the league in completion percentage (72%) and yards per attempt (8.9).

But his 47 sacks on the season and New England’s easy schedule should have been a sign of things to come. Maye was sacked 21 times and finished with four turnovers in four postseason games.

As Ralph mentioned, Maye has a league-leading six interceptions and just one touchdown in three games, and his 58.6 passer rating is the worst among qualifying passers this season. And one talent evaluator told me some of New England’s moves this offseason could be to blame.

“Maye committed this offense last year,” a senior NFL personnel executive told me. “He also had Stefon Diggs and Kayshon Boutte. With AJ Brown’s injury, he now has none. Another reason I don’t like trade depth.”

Brown, who the Patriots gave a first-round pick to get, is on injured reserve after suffering an ankle injury in Week 1. New England released Diggs, who was its top receiver in 2025, early in the offseason to clear cap space. Kayshon Boutte, who had six hits in 14 games last season, was traded at the end of training camp, with coach Mike Vrabel saying he likely would have been a game-day scratch had he remained on the roster.

But while people Ralph talked to weren’t sure how Maye and the Patriots would get out of the hole they were in, another talent evaluator I spoke to offered a solution to get the quarterback back on the road to playing good football.

Streamline the offense like last year,” the talent evaluator said. “Get AJ Brown healthy. And tell Drake to stop trying so hard. He’s pressing.”

Vacchiano: The Giants’ decision to trade a fifth-round pick for quarterback JJ McCarthy was clearly an act of desperation in the wake of quarterback Jaxson Dart’s season-ending injury. Their hope is that McCarthy can prove to be at least an upgrade over their current starter, Jameis Winston.

But some around the league think that might be a little too much to ask.

“There’s no question McCarthy has talent,” one scout told me. “He’s probably capable of what they want to do, too. But honestly, if the Vikings were willing to trade their former quarterback for a fifth-round pick, you really have to wonder what they know.

To be fair, McCarthy has had injury problems. He missed his entire rookie season with a knee injury. Then last season, when he was finally a starter, he missed seven games with a sprained ankle, a concussion and a fractured hand.

However, somewhere along the line, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell lost all faith in him. Because instead of giving McCarthy his job back for 2026, the Vikings instead signed free agent Kyler Murray, a rebounding project, and even brought in veteran backup Carson Wentz.

“Think about it,” an NFL assistant told me. “He couldn’t beat Murray or Wentz. That doesn’t happen with a high first-round pick. That’s what happens with late-round, practice-type guys. So that tells you everything about what Minnesota thinks of him.

“Maybe a change of scenery will help. But O’Connell is very good with quarterbacks. If he couldn’t get anything out of the kid, I don’t know if anyone at the Giants can.”

Williams: The two senior NFL scouts I spoke with didn’t mince words when asked where they graded JJ McCarthy entering the 2024 NFL Draft.

“Round three,” said one.

The fourth round, – said the other.

Of course, McCarthy was one of six quarterbacks taken in the first 12 picks, the fifth taken by the Minnesota Vikings with the 10th overall pick. McCarthy won a national title at Michigan under coach Jim Harbaugh, who he said was the best quarterback in the draft. But Harbaugh also said that Justin Herbert will be the greatest quarterback in NFL history, so we can take what he says with a grain of salt.

One scout was skeptical that McCarthy could turn things around with the New York Giants after the Vikings traded him for a fifth-round pick.

“If Kevin O’Connell couldn’t do what he did with Sam Darnold and Joshua Dobbs filling in for Kirk Cousins ​​— and it looks like he’ll do the same with Kyler Murray — then I don’t think Giants OC Matt Nagy can,” the senior NFL scout told me. “Matt doesn’t have the kind of resume that Kevin has — not a little for Matt.”

Another NFL quarterback evaluator was more optimistic about a turnaround for McCarthy, considering that Harbaugh’s older brother, Giants head coach John Harbaugh, should have all the intelligence on him from his time at Michigan.

Along with that, McCarthy will have lowered expectations, serving as the backup to Jameis Winston, with Jaxon Dart still considered New York’s quarterback of the future.

“A fresh start with the people who chose him is a good thing,” the talent evaluator told me. “Harbaugh’s history helps, too. Matt Nagy, I would think, knows what he’s doing, too.

“It reminds me of when guys like Mac Jones, Sam Darnold or Baker Mayfield go somewhere to line up and hopefully one day become a starter somewhere else.”