There’s been a toxic battle of preference on social media of late surrounding the future of the quarterback position in Chicago. There’s the Justin Fields crowd. There’s the Caleb Williams crowd. Those two segments have been the loudest. But what about the Drake Maye crowd? Many Bears fans have blinders on when it comes to Maye, thanks to the last North Carolina quarterback that the Bears drafted in the previous decade.
But if you ask Yaho🦋o Sports and The Athletic football guy, Nate Tice, Maye is the move at No. 1 if the Bears decided to draft a quarterback at No. 1.
“I have no clue what the Bears will do with the No. 1 pick, but Maye has been and is currently my QB1 for this draft class, so I’m giving him the nod,” Tice wrote in his .
For those not familiar with Tice, he’s the son of former NFL head coach Mike Tice and an Xs and Os junkie. If you listen to The Athletic’s staple football podcast with Tice and Robert Mays, you know that Tice knows his stuff.
But Tice doesn’t just give his pick for the Bears; he explains why he has Drake Maye over Caleb Williams, the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner.
“To get your answer with Maye is to first look at the currently successful and ascending quarterbacks in today’s NFL and what they’re able to do. First, they win from inside the pocket, and second, when all else fails or when the offense needs it, they can call their own number and pick up yards and first downs with their legs.”
Tice argues that Maye is the best QB prospect in the draft regarding the most translatable skill between college🧸 football and the NFL: pocket passing and the ability to win inside the pocket.
Caleb William🐬s entered the season as the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft class, mainly because of his ability to improvise and make plays off script. Everyone is searching for the next Patrick Mahomes, and Williams certainly has an enticing ceiling that could match Mahomes. His film is littered with plays that can make anyone believe he can be the next Mahomes.
But, perhaps the never-ending search for the next Mahomes is an exercise in futility. Mahomes has been called everything, but he’s often called a magician. He’s a one-of-a-kind quarterback and athlete. His improvisational skills are second to none and potentially impossible to replicate truly.
But there have been other successful quarterbacks to en🧜ter the NFL since he arrived in 2017. Justin Herbert. Joe Burrow. C.J. Stroud. Those guys win from the pocket. Two of them have record-setting second contracts. One is well on his way to a Rookie of the Year award. So, to Tice’s argument that Maye is the choice at No. 1, it makes plenty of sense if the Bears move on from Justin Fields.
That’s a big if, so please try to remain calm if you’re not sold on the Bears moving on from Justin Fields.
“The ability to win inside the pocket, to find the simple answers but also know when to push the ball when opportunities arise, separates the difference-making quarterbacks and the middle tier, like a baseball player who generates a high slugging percentage along with a high on-base percentage, rather than just small-ball singles-slapper.
Maye is über-aggressive. Ultra-aggressive. His willingness to push the ball is basically what made the monkeys crazy in Maye is able to attack this way because of his combination of size (6-foot-4, 229 pounds), athleticism, and pocket awareness. His footwork is bouncy in the pocket, where he constantly shows a feel for pressure (which he did often, considering North Carolina’s struggles in protection) and ability to drift and work away from it.”
One of the common points made by Caleb Williams’ detractors has been that Williams is just a younger, rawer version of Justin Fields. In that vein, drafting a quarterback with similar flaws as Fields risks would reset the quarterback contract clock for Chicago, but also risks not improving long-term at the position.
I’ve been tracking Justin Fields’ entire career on tape, and I’ve said a thousand times that Fields struggles to keep his eyes downfield and find the play downfield and instead leans on his ability to run and flee the pocket. Drake Maye has the feel in the pocket to move as well, but the feel isn’t just to run and scramble. Instead, he keeps his eyes downfield under pressure and finds receivers. Think C.J. Stroud. I’ve watched a ton of Stroud this season, and he has the Fields-esque escapability.
It’s all over his tape. The difference is that Stroud is moving to buy time, not yardage. He keeps his eyes upfield and makes plays. It’s impossible to cover NFL receivers for five-plus seconds and beyond; there will be a receiver open when you can escape or climb the pocket. To this point in his career, more often than not, Fields either hasn’t been able to see those receivers or chooses not to and moves on to Plan B.
“Maye’s strong arm and aggressive style aren’t the only features of his passing game. He is accurate at all three levels and viable on all types of throws and concepts. Maye shows touch on intermediate throws to get it up and over defenders and is consistently accurate on underneath throws. Combined with his velocity, his throws create plenty of yards-after-catch opportunities for his receivers, even when tightly covered.”
I think that Tice makes a strong argument. I also think it comes down to preference. Do you want a dual-threat quarterback, or do you want a quarterback who wins from the pocket? If the Bears want a dual-threat quarterback, they have one already. Tice’s argument for Maye rings true if they prefer a different skill set.
Much of that question will come down to the team’s vision in about a month, when they will either have an entirely new coaching staff or some version of the same staff. Until then, knowing the difference between the quarterback offerings (Fields included) is essential context to the debate that continues to rage on regarding the quarterback position in Chicago.
