One big story this week was ESPN analyst Merril Hoge expressing concern when it comes to North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye, with Maye being a player Hoge doesn’t believe any teams should target in round one.
Tom Curran of NBC Sports Boston followed up with Hoge, with the NFL analyst appearing on Curran’s most recent Patriots Talk Podcast. Curran asked him about those comments, as well as what he looks for in a quarterback.
“There’s really two things, and they’re entwined as one,” explained Hoge. “You can’t have one without the other, they have to work together and it’s really a guy that processes things quickly and effectively and is accurate, and that’s where it starts.”
“Let’s say you don’t have accuracy, but you’re a pretty good processor. Well, the accuracy will run you out of the league. Let’s say you’re accurate, but you’re really not a good processor. Well, that will run you out of the league. So those two things you have to show in college that you can really perform well.”
Hoge went on to say that within the last five years, only C.J. Stroud and Joe Burrow have fallen within that category based on who he’s evaluated.
One other note that Hoge mentioned was the fact that how fans view quarterbacks isn’t the right way. He says most judge players by what they did in college, and not necessarily how they’ll perform at the NFL level.
“I evaluate players on where they’re going to play, not where they’re playing,” said Hoge. “That’s always the problem because fans look at the college player, ‘He won a Heisman trophy,’ that’s a college thing. ‘He won a National Championship,’ that’s a college thing. ‘He played in the SEC,’ that’s the SEC in college. There’s a bunch of things that change and are big changes from college to the NFL that I don’t think anybody considers, and they are monumental.”
“First of all, the field is different. Now, the width and length are the same, however, the hashmarks are different and that completely changes the environment of the game. College hashmarks are wide, in the NFL, they’re narrow. In colleges you play on the perimeter, in the NFL, you’ve got to play in the middle.”
“Then when you look at the defenses and offenses that exist in the NFL, they’re just not even in the same hemispheres with what you see in college, it’s mindboggling. That’s the biggest hurdle. Everybody goes, ‘Oh, speed,’ no, speed is third. Number one is the IQ of the game. The overall intelligence of the game. You’ve got grown men, they’re the best in the world, being paid millions of dollars to play it, and they’re good at it.”
“You’ve got great coaches. You’ve got great people that game plan, thinking of things, you had one of the best of all time in Bill Belichick. That’s what you’re going against each and every Sunday and that’s just a big jump and a monumental jump.”
When asked about Maye, Hoge again doubled down on his previous evaluation.
“The Maye kid will get you fired,” said Hoge. “I wouldn’t touch him. Let’s talk about the two things I just mentioned – processing and accuracy – I cannot think of somebody as erratic as I have seen, I mean at every level.”
“People bring up Josh Allen all the time. They are 100% incorrect. This kid in North Carolina – I mean, let me tell you something, I’ve watched his last two years, every game. And I tried … the best game I ever saw, which actually would be a marginal game too – you’d walk away going ‘eh’ – was the Pitt game. His last game, the NC State game, I’m telling you [shakes head], when I got done with it, I’m like, can he function in a dirty environment? Does he move well, still throw well, and process well? He’s bad there, and he’s bad in a clean pocket which actually was very disturbing.”
Curran then asked him if Maye’s footwork could be fixed, which Hoge felt was possible, but he also said that clubs often fall into the trap of ‘I can fix him.’ He also believes there’s too much else that just makes Maye a player not worthy of being taken at the top of round one.
Meanwhile, he called Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy “OK,” and he’s someone who Hoge also feels doesn’t believe to be worthy of a first-round pick, at least not when compared to players like Stroud and Burrow.
One point of emphasis that Hoge did preach was the fact that, “Nothing great is built suddenly,” and “Teams win championships.” That strikes a bit of a chord, given that even someone like Tom Brady didn’t win as a rookie. It took Brady a full year quietly in the NFL behind the scenes before he was truly ready to step in when his number was called, and it took a collective effort by that entire team during that 2001 Patriots season to win a title.
For now, Hoge makes a couple of arguments that would make any Patriots fan potentially have pause when it comes to Maye, which will likely see the narrative continue to shift toward McCarthy, who the club is also rumored to have interest in.
(The above appeared in a recent Patriots Daily News and Notes column.)
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