Chris Simms rips Drake Maye, ranks him #6 QB in the draft

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Simms — who played in the NFL from 2003 to 2009 — ranked Maye as the No. 6 quarterback in this 2024 NFL Draft class. While USC’s Caleb Williams and Daniels occupied their own two tiers at the top of Simms’ list, he tabbed Oregon’s Bo Nix, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., and McCarthy in the third tier as “franchise starting” quarterbacks.

During the latest episode of his “Chris Simms Unbuttoned” podcast, Simms gave his reasoning for why he ranked Maye in such a low spot.

“There’s things you watch, and you go, ‘Wow.’ If you watch the highlight package, you go, ‘Woah.’ You watch the highlight package and you go, wow, he looks the part, he’s got the prototypical size, and kinda has the look of a franchise quarterback,” Simms said. … You watch the best games in his career, and yeah, you’ll see a few of those (great) throws, but for every one of those throws, there’s five of, like, what the hell is that throw?

“There’s no way evaluators, coaches are going to be able to get behind, like, right now, Drake Maye and go ‘Oh yeah, he’s ready to go, he should be the No. 2 or No. 3 pick in the draft.’ No way! There are too many things about his game that need to be polished, better, improved.”

Simms added: “I think there’s potential here. That’s where it’s tough. There are some things where I go, yes, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near right around the corner. This would be like, hey, he needs to sit on the bench a little bit and needs to work on some real mechanical issues that he has.

“Going through reads, I don’t think he’s in the same class as the guys we talked about, and I mean all of them. I think they all go through it and do it quicker. In the pocket, he’s the worst in the pocket. The worst.”

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