Debating the 2024 NFL Draft's No. 2 QB between LSU's Jayden Daniels, UNC's Drake Maye
Following Caleb Williams, the presumptive favorite for the No. 1 pick, two other quarterbacks are in a tight battle for the No. 2 spot in LSU’s Jayden Daniels and North Carolina’s Drake Maye.
On Thursday morning’s live On3 YouTube show, Andy Staples dedicated a few minutes to breaking down exactly who he has second between Maye and Daniels while evaluating each of their games and also the situations they had to deal with last fall. First was Maye, who Staples likes from a physical standpoint, but is left scratching his head over some losses in 2023.
“Drake Maye has all of the physical attributes you want. He’s tall, he’s strong, he’s fast, he has a huge arm, he can make every throw, he’s smart, he comes from a very competitive family of all very good athletes,” said Staples. “That said, couldn’t beat Virginia and Georgia Tech last year. That is a red flag. I’m sorry. If you are the No. 2 pick in the draft, and you have a reasonably good team around you, you should be able to win those games. That’s a problem.”
On the other hand, Daniels had — not just a reasonably good team, but elite personnel surrounding him across the board on that LSU offense.
“Jayden Daniels, LSU quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner, he’s the other one. Now, we talked about Malik Nabers earlier. Did having Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas make life easier for Jayden Daniels? Did that make him look better? I don’t think having Brian Thomas and Malik Nabers helped Jayden Daniels run the way he ran. Maybe it did, maybe they cleared everybody out, but Jayden Daniels was a very effective quarterback.”
The receivers are obviously one aspect of difference between Maye and Daniels, but Staples believes the key upgrade for Daniels was with his offensive line play.
“Now, he had a pretty good offensive line, too, that’s the other thing to consider. Drake Maye did not have a good offensive line. Jayden Daniels had Will Campbell and Emery Jones as his tackles. Those guys are NFL players, they’re going to be drafted very high in 2025. So Jayden Daniels had more advantages than Drake Maye in college, and that’s one thing that teams have to consider.”
Staples also believes that coaching fit is huge with the No. 2 pick. Evaluating players purely as pro prospects is one thing, but knowing that the Commanders sit second in the draft plays into who Staples thinks goes there.
“They also have to consider the offenses they ran, how those players fit into the offenses they want to run. Kliff Kingsbury (Commanders OC) and Drake Maye will speak a similar language. Jayden Daniels, he was working with Mike Denbrock. I don’t think he would have a problem picking up that offense either.”
With all that info, Andy Staples still keeps coming back to Daniels and what he showed on the field this year as the edge for him over Maye.
“Jayden Daniels seemed to lead his team to more success, and I realize he had a better team around him than Drake Maye did. Some of the games Drake Maye didn’t win give you pause. There were games North Carolina absolutely should have won if they got one of the two best quarterbacks in the NFL Draft.”