Caleb Williams is projected No. 1, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye are the consensus pair to be chosen between at No. 2 and maybe No. 3, and then there are the other guys – but is that really how it is?
Merril Hoge, just Monday, said he doesn’t see Williams as ‘special’ and Maye as anything close to a first-rounder, and other pundits have had similar takes on the ‘top’ guys…so how big IS that gap?
“So, we had kind of, at least in my brain, settled on this notion that we're gonna see quarterbacks go basically 1-2-3,” EB said. “Maybe I’m wrong if everyone's trashing these guys?”
JP read a quote from a former NFL QB Kurt Benkert where he called Maye “a more athletic Mason Rudolph with less arm talent and a lot less accuracy,” and again, take things with a grain of salt, but he also said Maye “has a lot of backyard football in his game but doesn't have the athletic upside that it requires to live in that world as often as he does.”
There was some positive, too, but it all comes back to perception.
“It’s funny how some guys hate certain players; like, Hoge doesn't think Maye is a first rounder, and this guy doesn't think he's a first rounder, but Dan Orlovsky thinks he's the best quarterback in the draft,” Bish Bucks mused.
“I know Cakes didn't like my analogy last week, but I said Stroud and Richardson were both drafted high, Stroud based on his college production, but Richardson because he was a project really, because of his size and his arm strength,” JP said. “To me, the production guy this year is Jayden Daniels – and I'm not saying his game is like Stroud’s, but he's the production guy – and the project guy is Maye, because all the guys who believe Maye should be the top choice are saying it’s because of what they think he might be able to become, not because of what he's already done.”
Everyone is different, which is the best way Bish could sum it up again, as JP read some of former Jets scout Daniel Kelly’s take on Maye – and that’s when EB wanted to have the guys put their grading chops on the line and do full breakdowns of Williams, Daniels, and Maye, and maybe McCarthy, Penix, and Nix, too, and lay it all out on the show over the next few weeks.
You can listen to the Junks’ entire conversation above!
