A former NFL scout has his own opinion on the Commanders’ No. 2 conundrum: April 25 should be Maye Day.
John Middlekauff, a former Eagles scout and now podcaster, said recently that he’s hearing Drake Maye will be the No. 2 pick for the Commanders, invoking all of the QBs that have had success for Adam Peters and Dan Quinn over their careers – and that Maye turned down a $5 million offer from an SEC school, which is almost certainly Alabama, to go there and play.
The Junkies played the audio, and after Cakes wondered how you could turn down that kind of cash, EB said he could see it.
“I kind of buy it. We’ve been talking about it for months, but you do get little pieces of information that come out and so you want to debate it – but if you really, really think about it, the preconceived notions going in was that he would go No. 2,” EB said. “We go through all these machinations and we go through the JJ McCarthy hype and the Jayden hype and I think those guys all have potential to be quality quarterbacks, but at the end of the day, they are probably are gonna be enamored with all of the physical attributes that Drake Maye has.”
“He's a polarizing guy, because there are some people that love him, but there are some that believe he has bust written all over him,” JP replied. “A name that I saw in terms of a comparison to Drake Maye that scared me, and it had to do with kind of his pro day, was Christian Hackenberg. That's horrible, coming out of college he had all of those measurable – but then, I saw an ESPN analytics guy whose comps using data were Jake Browning and Jordan Ta’amu.”
Drab immediately jumped in to call U-Dub alum Browning a ‘noodle arm who can't throw to the sideline,’ and Bish said Maye ‘was a million times better than Ta’amu in college,’ buy hey, man, analytics!
“They just have an opinion and scream analytics,” Valdez chimed in from the dungeon.
“Not everyone loves him. Some do and compare him to Josh Allen or Herbert. But if it's about upside, I could see Quinn and Kingsbury and Peters thinking he’s the guy,” Bish said. “He's tall, he's got a really good arm, he can run, he's good in the pocket, good kid and could be a leader.”
“I think you can make the argument, and see I would go the other way on this, that he might be a safer pick because he just looks like he's gonna be more durable than Daniels,” EB said. “I think Daniels is the most exciting player, but I agree he may not ultimately be the better quarterback. I would love to have Jayden Daniel’s skill set and watch him, I feel he would make us instantly competitive and Drake Maye may not, but Drake may might be a safer bet, the guy more available and is going to develop.”
Take a listen to the entire conversation above!