Getty

Drake Maye got a surpassingly low ranking from the NFL Index.

In 2024, the New England Patriots made then-21-year-old North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye the No. 3 overall draft pick, the highest pick since owner Robert Kraft bought the team 30 years earlier, in 1994.

In fact, Maye was highest Patriots pick since 1993, when under previous owner James Orthwein, New England took Washington State QB Drew Bledsoe with the No. 1 overall pick.

In his sophomore season, Bledsoe led the Patriots to their first playoff appearance in eight years. Two years later, he took the team to only the second Super Bowl in franchise history, though the Patriots lost that one to the Green Bay Packers, 35-21.

Two more playoff appearances would follow before Bledsoe was seriously injured in the second game of the 2001 season and replaced — as it turned out, permanently — by the 199th draft pick from the previous year, Tom Brady.

Patriots Try to Cool Expectations Placed on Maye

So, as the highest draft pick since Bledsoe, expectations for Maye are clearly running high.

Before the season, Patriots senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith said that the organization was not burdening Maye with those high expectations.

“I don’t think anyone’s expecting Drake Maye to put this franchise on his back,” Highsmith said in June. “Everyone’s got to play a part, and even though he’s a quarterback — the quarterback position is a high-profile position and it requires a lot of things — I think everybody’s going to do their part to help Drake Maye.”

But realistically, fans and even Maye himself will be looking to the QB in get second season of his four-year, $36.6 million rookie contract to lead the Patriots at least to a significant improvement over the 4-13 records the team has managed in the past two seasons.

Maye’s Ranking Among NFL Quarterbacks a Letdown

That’s why it had to be sobering to see the new, preseason Quarterback Index rankings released by the NFL on Wednesday.

NFL.com analyst Nick Shook divided the 32 projected NFL starting QBs into eight “tiers,” with the lowest-numbered tier — No. 1 — including the league’s elite quarterbacks, and quality decreasing as the numbers go up.

Maye ranks in the Tier No. 5, with an overall ranking of 23rd in the NFL.

But Shook took an apologetic tone in explaining Maye’s modest rating.

“Many pundits might say Drake Maye is ranked too low here, and I wouldn’t entirely disagree,” he wrote. “We know he has the tools. I’d rather begin him here for the season, though, and let him climb instead of inflating his standing before we see how he actually benefits from an upgraded surrounding cast —and how he meshes with (new offensive coordinator) Josh McDaniels. If all goes well, Maye will rise up these rankings.”

NFL Index in Line With Previous Ranking

The NFL Index rating is basically in line with Maye’s ranking in an Athletic survey of NFL coaches and executives, that included “six GMs, six assistant GMs, six former GMs, five other executives, eight head coaches and 19 other coaches, including 15 coordinators.”

In that survey, Maye ranked 22nd overall of the 34 signal-callers rated in the poll. That placed him Tier No. 3 of five.

But Athletic analyst Mike Sando admitted that evaluating Maye posed some significant challenges, with his rookie-year coach Jerod Mayo fired and new head coach Mike Vrabel, along with McDaniels and a whole new coaching staff now in place — along with the fact that the Patriots simply failed to field a competitive NFL team last year.

“His team was so bad,” one offensive coordinator said in the survey. “Vince Lombardi couldn’t have gotten that team any more wins than they got. Maye has promise. There is talent. There is ability. I think he looked very natural at the position.”

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin