Player
Drake Maye
QB · NE Patriots
Efficiency gains on rising volume are the signature of real development rather than a friendly schedule: more attempts means more exposure to third-and-long, more two-minute drills, more chances to give games away. He absorbed all of it and got cleaner. The 2.2-yard jump in yards per attempt is the single number that separates a promising starter from an offense that runs through its quarterback.
The year-two detonation
He added 154 attempts, nearly doubled his yards, doubled his touchdowns, and threw two FEWER interceptions.
TrendMaye regular-season passing by year
| Year | G | Att | Comp% | Yards | TD | INT | Y/A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 13 | 338 | 66.6% | 2,276 | 15 | 10 | 6.73 |
| 2025 | 17 | 492 | 72.0% | 4,394 | 31 | 8 | 8.93 |
The typical second-year quarterback improves by about two points of efficiency. Maye's second year moved every dial at once: completion rate up 5.4 points to 72.0%, yards per attempt up from 6.73 to 8.93, touchdowns from 15 to 31, interceptions down from 10 to 8, all while the workload grew by 154 attempts. Volume up and mistakes down at the same time is the rarest combination in quarterback development.
Why it matters. Efficiency gains on rising volume are the signature of real development rather than a friendly schedule: more attempts means more exposure to third-and-long, more two-minute drills, more chances to give games away. He absorbed all of it and got cleaner. The 2.2-yard jump in yards per attempt is the single number that separates a promising starter from an offense that runs through its quarterback.
The most valuable dropback in football: no quarterback produced more per play in 2025, sacks included.
Rare2025 EPA per dropback, min 300 dropbacks (regular season, sacks included)
| QB | Dropbacks | EPA/dropback |
|---|---|---|
| Drake Maye | 540 | +0.298 |
| Jordan Love | 462 | +0.239 |
| Matthew Stafford | 620 | +0.227 |
| Jared Goff | 616 | +0.173 |
| Dak Prescott | 634 | +0.168 |
Charge him for all 47 sacks and Maye still produced +0.298 expected points every time he dropped back, the best mark in the NFL in 2025 and a full 0.06 clear of second place. He finished as the QB2 in fantasy (352.0 PPR points, behind only Josh Allen) and dragged New England to the No. 1 offense in the league by the same measure. At 23, in his second season, he led the sport in the stat that best captures a quarterback's whole job.
Why it matters. EPA per dropback is the least gameable quarterback stat because it prices every outcome: the sack, the checkdown, the throwaway, the bomb. Leading it at 23 puts Maye in the company of the youngest seasons of the Mahomes and Jackson arcs. For fantasy purposes it means the QB2 finish was earned on a per-play basis, not inflated by attempts.
Fifth-most passing yards ever thrown in a second season since 2010, and nobody above him ran for 450.
ComparisonBiggest year-2 passing seasons since 2010 (regular season)
| QB | Year 2 | Pass yds | Rush yds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Mahomes | 2018 | 5,097 | 272 |
| Justin Herbert | 2021 | 5,014 | 302 |
| Joe Burrow | 2021 | 4,611 | 118 |
| Blake Bortles | 2015 | 4,428 | 310 |
| Drake Maye | 2025 | 4,394 | 450 |
| Brock Purdy | 2023 | 4,280 | 144 |
| Deshaun Watson | 2018 | 4,165 | 551 |
Only four quarterbacks since 2010 have thrown for more in their second season, and the list is Mahomes, Herbert, Burrow, and Bortles. None of the four cracked 310 rushing yards in that season; Maye added 450 on the ground with 4 rushing scores. The one cautionary name on the list is instructive too: volume alone did not save Bortles, but Maye's 72% completion rate and 31-to-8 ratio have nothing in common with that season.
Why it matters. Year-2 passing volume at this level has been a near-perfect franchise-QB screen: Mahomes, Herbert, and Burrow all became faces of the sport. The rushing dimension is what separates Maye's version, because 450 ground yards is roughly 45 extra fantasy points that the pocket versions of this list never provided. In fantasy terms his profile is closer to the Allen blueprint than to any of the names above him.
He started throwing almost two yards deeper per attempt, and his completion rate went UP five points.
AnomalyMaye's depth and accuracy by season (regular season)
| Season | Avg depth of target | Comp% |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 7.34 air yds | 66.6% |
| 2025 | 9.13 air yds | 72.0% |
2025 deepest average target depth, min 300 attempts
| Rank | QB | aDOT |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matthew Stafford | 9.31 |
| 2 | Drake Maye | 9.13 |
| 3 | Jalen Hurts | 9.01 |
| 4 | Jordan Love | 8.84 |
| 5 | Lamar Jackson | 8.83 |
Depth and accuracy are supposed to trade against each other: throw deeper, complete less. Maye broke the trade in 2025. His average target depth jumped from 7.34 to 9.13 air yards, the second-deepest in football among 300-attempt passers, while his completion rate climbed from 66.6% to 72.0%. He turned into one of the league's most aggressive downfield throwers and its most accurate self at the same time.
Why it matters. A rising aDOT with rising accuracy means the completions are worth more each, which is precisely how yards per attempt jumped 2.2 in one offseason. Because target depth is one of the most persistent traits a passer carries year to year, this is the strongest single piece of evidence that the 2025 breakout reflects a changed quarterback rather than a hot streak.
How he wins
Nobody in football scrambled more: 62 takeoffs for 429 yards, more than Mahomes, Herbert, or Allen.
Rare2025 scramble volume leaders (regular season)
| QB | Scrambles | Yards | EPA/scramble |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drake Maye | 62 | 429 | +0.49 |
| Patrick Mahomes | 52 | 420 | +0.59 |
| Justin Herbert | 49 | 439 | +0.59 |
| Josh Allen | 48 | 426 | +0.59 |
| Caleb Williams | 43 | 363 | +0.61 |
Maye led the NFL with 62 scrambles in 2025, producing 429 of his 450 rushing yards the improvised way rather than on designed runs. Each one returned +0.49 expected points, a little below the other names on this list but far above the value of an ordinary snap. The scramble is the play nobody can call: it only exists because coverage held. Maye's legs turned more dead plays into first downs than anyone else's in the sport.
Why it matters. Scramble volume is a fantasy cheat code hiding inside a real-football virtue: those 429 yards are worth roughly 43 PPR points that arrive with no extra target competition, and they come from a trait, escaping and finishing, that travels with the player rather than the scheme. The mild EPA discount versus Mahomes and Allen mostly reflects down-and-distance context, not a worse outcome per yard.
4,394 through the air, 450 on the ground: a season line only eight quarterbacks have ever posted since 1999.
MilestoneEvery 4,000-pass, 400-rush season since 1999 (regular season)
| QB | Season | Pass yds | Rush yds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff Garcia | 2000 | 4,278 | 414 |
| Daunte Culpepper | 2004 | 4,717 | 406 |
| Cam Newton | 2011 | 4,051 | 706 |
| Russell Wilson | 2015 / 2020 | 4,024 / 4,212 | 553 / 513 |
| Deshaun Watson | 2018 / 2020 | 4,165 / 4,823 | 551 / 444 |
| Josh Allen | 2020-2023 (4x) | 4,283 to 4,544 | 421 to 763 |
| Lamar Jackson | 2024 | 4,172 | 915 |
| Drake Maye | 2025 | 4,394 | 450 |
Thirteen times in 27 seasons a quarterback has cleared 4,000 passing and 400 rushing yards in the same regular season, and the club has eight members: Garcia, Culpepper, Newton, Wilson, Watson, Allen (four times), Jackson, and now Maye. Newton is the only member who got there as a rookie; Garcia, Watson, and now Maye did it in their second seasons, and everyone else needed longer. This is the specific volume combination that has produced most of the QB1 overall fantasy finishes of the last decade.
Why it matters. The 4,000/400 line matters for fantasy more than any award: passing volume sets the floor and rushing yardage sets the ceiling, and the recent members of this club (Allen four straight years, Jackson) turned the profile into perennial top-3 finishes. Membership in year two, at age 23, is the strongest structural argument that Maye's QB2 finish was a beginning rather than a peak.
The 2026 case
MYTH TEST: 'fix the protection and the sacks disappear.' Everything else improved. The sack rate barely moved.
Maye sack rate by season (regular season)
| Season | Sacks | Dropbacks | Sack rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 34 | 372 | 9.1% |
| 2025 | 47 | 539 | 8.7% |
Highest 2025 sack rates, QBs with 300+ attempts
| QB | Sack rate |
|---|---|
| Geno Smith | 10.9% |
| Lamar Jackson | 10.7% |
| Justin Herbert | 9.5% |
| Jaxson Dart | 9.4% |
| Cam Ward | 9.2% |
| Drake Maye | 8.7% |
The comfortable story is that Maye's sacks are a line problem that better blocking will erase. The record says otherwise: between 2024 and 2025 his completion rate, depth, touchdown rate and interception rate all transformed, while the sack rate went from 9.1% to 8.7%, still among the half-dozen highest of any full-time starter. History's version holds here: sack avoidance follows the quarterback, and the same ball-holding that produces 62 scrambles and a league-best deep ball also produces 47 sacks. Confirmed, and worth pricing in: this is a trait, not a phase.
Why it matters. Sack rate is the one blemish on an otherwise elite profile, and the year-over-year persistence means drafters should treat it as a permanent cost of his style rather than an upside case waiting on a new guard. The silver lining is that the cost is already priced into his league-leading EPA per dropback, which charges him for all 47.
The 14-3 was not smoke: 7-0 when the game was not close, 20 or more points in 15 of 17 games.
AnomalyNew England 2025 (regular season)
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Record | 14-3 |
| Point differential | +170 (490 for, 320 against) |
| Games decided by 9+ | 7-0 |
| One-score games | 7-3 |
| Games scoring 20+ | 15 of 17 |
Breakout team seasons often hide a coin-flip record underneath. New England's 2025 does not: the Patriots went 7-0 in games decided by nine or more, outscored the league by 170, and reached 20 points in 15 of 17 games on the way to the Super Bowl (a 29-13 loss to Seattle). The parts of a record that carry real signal, the blowouts and the margin, are exactly the parts New England dominated. This was a top-of-the-league team on the merits, quarterbacked by a 23-year-old.
Why it matters. For a quarterback's fantasy outlook, the supporting evidence matters as much as his own stats: an offense that scores 20-plus every week creates touchdown opportunities regardless of game script. Because margin and blowout record are the components of team quality that repeat best, the environment around Maye in 2026 projects to stay elite, which underwrites both his volume and his scoring rate.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: young quarterbacks who score like this keep scoring. Maye finishes top-10 at the position again in 2026.
QB seasons of 300+ PPR points at age 23 or younger, 1999-2024: the next season
| Cohort | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| All qualifying seasons | 17 | |
| Top-10 QB next season | 11 of 17 | 65% |
| Top-12 QB next season | 12 of 17 | 71% |
| Top-5 QB next season | 6 of 17 | 35% |
Maye's qualifying 2025
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| PPR points | 352.0 (QB2) |
| Age on Sept 1, 2025 | 23 |
| EPA per dropback | +0.298 (1st) |
| Team offense EPA rank | 1st |
Seventeen times since 1999 a quarterback aged 23 or younger has cleared 300 PPR points: the Newtons, Watsons, Herberts and Mahomeses of their eras. The next year, 11 of the 17 finished top-10 at the position and 12 finished top-12; the misses are mostly injury seasons. The gradeable call: Maye finishes top-10 among QBs in total PPR points in 2026. With A.J. Brown arriving in Foxborough to catch the league's best deep ball, the case for the repeat is stronger than the base rate.
Why it matters. Precocity is the strongest predictor in quarterback forecasting: scoring 300+ at 23 selects for the talent and the entrenched role at once, and the cohort's failures required injuries, not decline. Maye adds a stabilizer most of the cohort lacked, a No. 1 team offense returning its core plus an upgraded receiver room, while his one negative trait, the sack rate, is already baked into the 2025 baseline he is projecting from.
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