North Carolina Tar Heels quarterback Drake Maye. Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports

Chris Simms has surprising rank for one QB prospect

Originally posted on Larry Brown Sports
By Steve DelVecchio | Last updated 3/6/24

Drake Maye has widely been viewed as one of the three best quarterback prospects in the upcoming NFL Draft, but Chris Simms is not as high on the former North Carolina star as others are.

Simms, a longtime analyst for NBC Sports, released his rankings on Wednesday for the top-six quarterbacks in the 2024 NFL Draft.

The former quarterback has Caleb Williams at No. 1 and Jayden Daniels at No. 2, which is not a surprise. Where Simms differs from a lot of other analysts is that he does not view Maye as the third-, fourth- or even fifth-best QB prospect this year.

Simms ranked Bo Nix at No. 3, Michael Penix Jr. at No. 4, J.J. McCarthy at No. 5 and finally Maye at No. 6.

He separated his rankings into four tiers. Simms views Williams as being in “a class of his own.” He said he believes Daniels would be worthy of the top overall pick in other drafts.

He feels Nix, Penix and McCarthy are “franchise starting QBs.” Simms placed Maye in Tier 4 and described the former Tar Heel as a “talented project.”

Here’s my Top 6 QBs in this year’s Draft. These rankings are based on film.
Full pod coming soon pic.twitter.com/RvCdgBhBg4

— Chris Simms (@CSimmsQB) March 6, 2024

The majority of mock drafts have Maye going either second to the Washington Commanders or third to the New England Patriots.

McCarthy’s stock has been soaring, but most analysts still have him, Nix and Penix all ranked beneath Maye. Simms is forming his own opinion, though he did note that he has only watched film.

One of the biggest concerns with Maye is the level of competition he faced in college. Williams, Nix and Penix played in a loaded Pac-12 last season. Daniels played in the SEC at LSU, and McCarthy faced tough competition in the Big Ten. Of all the aforementioned quarterbacks, Maye’s team played in the weakest conference.

The big takeaway here might be that this year’s draft is loaded at the quarterback position. That was not true when Simms missed on some of his analysis two years ago.

Teams that need QBs have a lot to choose from, and that will make life even more difficult than usual for talent evaluators.

This article first appeared on Larry Brown Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: