If you've been following along lately, you've seen that I've been in full draft season mode. It's watching tape season, and while I think the Bears will draft Caleb Williams, I'm not limiting the film study to just Williams. So, here we go with another series here at BN, The Drake Maye Tapes.

As I've been doing with the Williams tapes, I will watch Drake Maye games, and I'll share my observations here to help us understand what the North Carolina quarterback brings to the table whether it be good, bad, or indifferent.

Here's how this will work: 

Let's get into it.

So, here we go, we're getting into Drake Maye. I was originally going to do Williams first and then Maye, but I'm a glutton for punishment. Like with Williams, I'm working my way backward through his 2023 schedule, and I'll choose games as I wish. Today we're looking at Maye's performance against N.C. State to close the regular season for North Carolina.

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking Clemson, Duke (2 OT), and Miami are on deck for Maye after this in this series.

Drake Maye struggled to find his rhythm in the opening quarter, failing to complete any of his three pass attempts. Although he showed some improvement in the second half, he only mustered 254 passing yards, marking his fourth-lowest performance of the season. This contributed to the team's fourth loss of the season in Maye's farewell game as a Tar Heel.

I gave Maye a plus on the Tar Heels second offensive play for a good turn down decision, and he didn't get another positive mark until North Carolina's fourth possession of the game in the second quarter. It was an ugly, disjointed start for Maye and the North Carolina offense as a unit. I didn't like the play-calling. It didn't benefit Maye and UNC had bad results on their first five possessions, either punting or turning the ball over, including a fumble by Drake Maye on the second possession.

Our first clip is a 3rd & 9 play where I'm not really sure what Drake Maye is doing with this throw. He's got two wide receivers up top. The No. 1 at the very top is running a go route and the No. 2 in the slot is running an out route to the sideline.

From the sideline view of the All-22 it looks like Maye just sails it over the No. 2's head to the sideline. The end zone angle makes it look more like he's trying to hit him, but just misses him high and wide, something that I would end up seeing a bunch of in the game.

To be clear, the No. 1 at the top was not open despite throwing his hands up as if he was, he doesn't see the safety floating down on top of him. Maye decided to take the out route underneath, but it's just not a very good throw.

This was a theme in this game for Maye, even when he started to pick it up toward half-time.

Here's a similar miss on the ensuing possession:

This isn't an easy throw by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a throw he should make. It's a great concept, one of the few play calls by UNC in this game that I really like. It's a designed boot to Maye's left, shifting the launch point and allowing the deep crosser to get on the other side of the hash marks. Everything is there but the throw, which Maye comes up short on.

The Drake Maye Tapes is an NFL Draft series on the Bleacher Nation website. As a subscriber to this newsletter, you have early access to this story.

If you're going to be a round one grade, that's a throw you have to make. The play is very similar to the one Caleb Williams had in the Oregon game. Williams threw a much deeper and more difficult pass, which was accurate, but his wide receiver dropped it.

Here's another miss by Maye in the first half, but watch closely at the footwork here:

People have joked that they don't want another North Carolina quarterback in Chicago because of the Mitch Trubisky experience, but Maye is reminding me of the current quarterback in Chicago more than Trubisky.

The shuffle-click in the footwork, the pocket drift, and the long load up on this one scream Justin Fields, and this wasn't the only time I saw it in this game. The overthrow on the comeback route at the top along the sideline was pretty Fields-esque as well.

The footwork just looks so long and clunky, and it takes him forever to get through this progression only to overthrow it. Like I said, things got better, but specific conerns like that footwork and pocket drift did not go away in this game.

At this point in the watch I laughed because I've seen so many people try to compare Fields to Caleb Williams, saying that Williams is the same quarterback but slower than Fields, and not only is that not true, there are more similarities between Fields and Maye.

Here's another example:

Maye has a single-high safety look with both of his slot receivers running seam routes, and he passes the look up. That was a can't miss look. He could have gone either direction with the safety caught in no-man's land, but instead of manipulating the safety and hitting the other side, he takes off and runs the ball.

He did end up getting good yardage out of the run, but there was no reason to run. That's the kind of things that I've watched Justin Fields do over and over again for three years. Turn down a big play with his arm to take off and do something with his feet, sometimes when there's absolutely no reason to do so.

Let's change gears, because there were actually some extremely impressive throws that Maye did make in this one. The very next play after that bailout was the first "wow!" throw for me on of that game.

Everything about this play translates to Sunday. The pre-snap read, the check into the play, the execution. This is the type of stuff that has people excited about Maye.

Maye changes the play before the snap and executes it perfectly. We've got trips at the top on Maye's left, and we see Maye roll left and turn down the short out route that draws the safety in leaving the No. 2 receiver with single-coverage and inside leverage at the goal line. Maye does not miss. That's a big time throw from Maye and the start of some better results in this game.

Here's another excellent throw from Maye that'll translate to the next level:

Maye is under immediate pressure here, but he stands tall in the pocket and delivers a strike to his slot receiver running a slant over the middle for a completion and a first down.

Maye finished the game 22 of 38 for 254 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions, and a rushing touchdown. There were some big time throws, and he had plenty of plus plays in this one despite UNC getting blown out by N.C. State.

However, there weren't nearly as many double plus or elite plays from Maye as I would have expected given his pre-draft status. For the handful of NFL throws that I saw, there were twice as many misses on throws. I observed 11 inaccurate throws, mostly high or too far in front of the receiver, often a couple of yards ahead. One of his two interceptions was off of the hands of a receiver, but it evened out because I had one throw in the first half that was a completion but would have been intercepted if the safety didn't slip.

Here's how Maye's 46 plays broke down:

He had two double plus plays (a special throw or play by the quarterback, including drops or mistakes by the wide receiver or other results out of the control of the quarterback), one of which was a long run on a quarterback draw. He had 23 plus plays (a positive play, good decision, or good throw by the quarterback), six indifferent plays (a play that's not fairly reflective of the quarterback's performance one way or another), 13 minus plays (a poor decision, poor play, or poor throw by the quarterback), and two double minus plays (a horrible throw or decision that resulted in a turnover that was the quarterback's fault, or a turnover worthy play that was the quarterback's fault).

Final Takeaways 

The Blackhawks host the Philadelphia Flyers tonight at 6:30 PM CT. You can catch the action on TNT.