There’s nothing more fun than loading up on wide receivers and running backs. I’m willing to admit it. They are the lifeblood of fantasy football. They’re often the most entertaining players to watch. And that’s coming from arguably the biggest tight end fan in the industry. There’s just something special about loading up your WR and RB spots with the league’s best divas and bellcows. That, however, can leave you thin at the “onesie” positions, like quarterback and tight end.

And that’s fine with me. Because we know the secret ingredients to success. The quarterback and tight end positions are the easiest ways to create leverage by hitting on later breakouts. We’ve been doing it for years, especially with our Yin & Yang tight end strategy. You load up on RB and TE, then focus some extra energy on the onesie positions. You circle back and create a 

This year, at the quarterback position, there’s one player who certainly stands out as the possible key to unlocking a championship roster. And he’s going deep enough in drafts that you might not even need to draft him as your starting quarterback. But Drake Maye fits all the conditions we look for in terms of talent, scheme, and opportunity that could lead to fantasy football greatness in 2025. 

 

 

 

Drake Maye Talent

We have seen young quarterbacks struggle to throw the football early in their NFL careers. That’s especially true for raw talents. And the issues compound when they don’t have weapons around them. Josh Allen, for example, had completion percentages of 52.8% and 58.8% in his first two seasons when his top weapons were guys like Zay Jones and John Brown. In year three, when they added Stefon Diggs alongside Cole Beasley, that number shot up to 69.2% and he took the leap towards being a star. Stefon Diggs obviously isn’t the player he was then, and the weapons in New England are still a bit shaky, but Maye also doesn’t have as much ground to cover as Allen did - his completion percentage was already 66.6% as a rookie.

And, to be completely honest with you, the passing is not necessarily what we care about with Drake Maye. We’ve seen some mediocre or even poor passing QBs still deliver QB1 seasons in fantasy based on rushing ability, like Daniel Jones, Vince Young, and Marcus Mariota. In fact, over the last decade, every QB to run at least 85 times (5 carries per game) and play at least 16 games has finished top 10 in fantasy. Here is that list, per the Stathead tool via ProFootballReference.com. You have to go back to Colin Kaepernick to find a QB who ran that much yet couldn’t deliver a QB1 fantasy season.

   

Last year, Jalen Hurts finished as QB8 in fantasy while only throwing for 2,903 yards and 18 TDs (thank you, Tush Push). Guys like Bo Nix and Kyler Murray were both top 10 QBs. Bo Nix had 430 yards on 92 carries (4.7 yards per carry), which isn’t far off from what Josh Allen did with 531 yards on 102 carries (5.2 yards per carry). That’s the appeal for Nix. So why wouldn’t we be interested in Drake Maye, who is faster than both players and had 421 yards on only 54 carries (7.8 yards per carry)? This is not merely a “mobile QB”; this guy is a legit rushing quarterback. The top season in college for Jayden Daniels saw 186 carries - Drake Maye had one with 184. That’s why these guys got drafted as high as they did.

 

 

 

Drake Maye Scheme

Here’s where it gets really interesting for Maye. Most of the other quarterbacks with that kind of rushing ability were getting a lot of designed runs called for them. But, as last year’s offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt admitted in an interview, they were not calling designed run plays for Maye. He told Evan Lazar of Patriots.com that the Patriots knew they were not a competitive team, having a 1-5 record before Maye even got a chance to start, so they weren’t going to put their rookie QB in harm's way. Per Pro Football Focus, Maye had 54 total carries, and 45 of those were scrambles. Two of those runs were QB sneaks, and another two were kneel downs, meaning he had only a handful of actual designed play calls for him on the season. In this clip from a press conference this week, you can hear new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels say to reporters last year that Drake Maye “had 421 rushing yards last year on no designed runs”. 

On those scrambles, Maye was still making things happen. Per FantasyPointsDataSuite, his 407 rushing yards on scrambles were third only behind Jayden Daniels (577) and Lamar Jackson (411). And his 31.3 rushing yards per game on scrambles was only behind fellow rookie Jayden Daniels' 36.1. He was also top five in rush yards per attempt on scrambles among QBs that played at least 6 games. 

Josh McDaniels is making his return to New England, where he has experience with a mobile QB. Now, obviously, Drake Maye isn’t Cam Newton - few quarterbacks are. But Newton was used HEAVILY to run the football in New England under McDaniels with 137 rush attempts and 12 touchdowns. Per Pro Football Focus, 14 of those plays were designed zone runs and 57 of them were designed man/gap plays, including QB draws and traps. Keep in mind - in terms of QB rush yards per snap, Drake Maye was already living right in the range of rushing QBs like Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, and Kyler Murray. Given that he was in out of games with his/Jacoby Brissett’s healthy, Maye essentially played 11 games' worth of snaps when all was said and done, which would extrapolate out to around ~650 yards on a full season - even without designed runs. Only five QBs ran for more than 500 yards last year.   

 

 

 

Drake Maye Opportunity

Last year’s New England Patriots team was a disaster. Virtually the entire coaching staff was let go after winning only four games (which was really more like three wins, considering the Bills would have almost certainly beaten the Patriots again had they not benched their starters in Week 18). This year, they have a whole new staff. They are expected to have four of five new starters on the offensive line this year, including a first-round pick in Will Campbell. They signed Stefon Diggs on top of drafting pass-catching back TreVeyon Henderson and wide receiver Kyle Williams. And they still have some solid options returning in Hunter Henry and DeMario Douglas. Vegas has its over/under win total line set at 8.5, which is the same as Kyler Murray’s Cardinals and only one game lower than Bo Nix’s Broncos. 

A big reason for that is, according to Sharp Football Analysis, the Patriots have the second-easiest schedule based on Vegas forecasted win totals, behind only the 49ers. I encourage you to check out the full article here by Warren Sharp that breaks down the methodology and has some interesting graphics, but the bottom line is that the Patriots are playing a last-place schedule that includes a lot of winnable games. Conditions are lining up pretty well for Drake Maye to succeed in 2025. 

Again, the main argument here is that Drake Maye is a rushing quarterback who should run the ball enough to offer a solid floor and great ceiling. But that isn't our only “out” here. There's also a world where Maye, with his new weapons and a new scheme, takes a step forward in year two as a passer as well. We saw some flashes of that last year.. And Bo Nix put a solid passing season together last year with Courtland Sutton and a rag-tag bunch of pass-catchers with some decent rushing sprinkled on top. That's not out of the realm of possibility for Drake Maye with Stefon Diggs and company - and he's a better runner than Nix.

 

 

 

Where To Draft Drake Maye In Fantasy Football?

It’s probably become clear by now that I’m willing to draft Drake Maye at or above his ADP. I’m also willing to take him as my QB1 in certain formats. But the beautiful thing about Maye’s current ADP is that you don’t have to take him as your QB1. That might change as we move through August here and folks realize the upside but, as of this moment, he even goes undrafted in some single QB leagues. A lot of fantasy gamers have that “draft one QB” mentality. 

Right now, Maye’s composite ADP is QB16 off the board outside of the first 10 rounds. That means that you could go with a super conservative route in your drafts by waiting on quarterback and then using our Dynamic Tier Rankings to draft two. If you wanted to do things the way we do them with Yin & Yang Tight End, you could wait until every team in your 10-12 team league takes a QB then grab someone from the “safe” column like Jared Goff or Jordan Love and pair them with Drake Maye as your high risk, high reward bench stash (I often draft Maye first then take a look at a safe QB later since there are plenty of them). 

Either way, I suggest you give Maye a shot in at least one of your leagues. If you load up on other positions early in your draft and Maye hits the upside of similar rushing QBs, you could absolutely steamroll your friends and foes this year. And isn't that what fantasy football is all about?