Drake Maye settled the 2024 quarterback class in his second season, and the resume did the arguing for him. Asked on PFSN’s Football Debate Club whether he would build a franchise around Maye or Caleb Williams for the long haul, analyst Jacob Infante didn’t blink.
“It’s Drake Maye,” Infante said. “We’ve seen him play at an elite level this year. He was the runner-up for MVP. He was an All-Pro. He was a Pro Bowler. He led his team to the Super Bowl. It’s a clear option right now.”
Why Drake Maye Is the Easy Pick Today
The accolades hold up to scrutiny. Maye finished second in AP MVP voting to Matthew Stafford, losing one of the closest races in the award’s history by five points, 366 to 361. He earned second-team All-Pro honors and a second straight Pro Bowl selection. He led the NFL in completion percentage at 72% while throwing for 4,394 yards, 31 touchdowns and 8 interceptions.
The team result carried even more weight. New England went 14-3, won its first division title since 2019 and reached Super Bowl LX, where Maye became the third quarterback to start a Super Bowl before turning 24, joining Ben Roethlisberger and Dan Marino. The Patriots lost 29-13 to Seattle, and Maye had a rough night with 2 interceptions and 6 sacks, but the run reframed an entire draft class.
That is the standard Williams has to chase. Maye is roughly a year younger, already more accurate, and further along in the parts of playing quarterback that take the longest to develop. For 2026, the order isn’t really up for debate.
Infante doesn’t see the gap as permanent, though. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Caleb cuts that gap significantly in 2026,” he said. His reasoning leans on film and mechanics rather than projection.
Caleb Williams Already Erased His Worst Trait
Start with what Williams fixed. As a rookie, he took a franchise-record 68 sacks, the third-most in a single season in NFL history. In year two under new coach Ben Johnson, his sack rate dropped from 10.8% to 4.1%, which the Bears called the largest single-season improvement by any quarterback since the 1970 merger.
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“From year one to year two, there’s the big glaring issue with sack avoidance,” Infante said. “He did a much better job in year two of making sure that the times he was pressured, those didn’t turn into big sacks that cost his team.”
The next project is obvious. Williams completed just 58.1% of his passes in 2025, a completion percentage that ranked near the bottom among qualified passers, even as he set a Bears single-season record with 3,942 yards and threw 27 touchdowns against 7 interceptions.
“This year, his big weakness is the intermediate accuracy,” Infante said. “The footwork at the apex of his [dropback] needs work. I think he’s going to be able to really hone in on that, because he has the arm talent, the athleticism, the creativity, the natural playmaking feel out of structure, and a clutch gene unlike anybody else, arguably in the NFL.”
So here’s the bet. A quarterback who eliminated the single ugliest trait of his rookie year inside one offseason has already shown he can attack a flaw and win. The accuracy issue traces back to footwork, not arm talent, and footwork is teachable.
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The two meet again in Week 7 on Thursday night, their first matchup since this debate took its current shape and the second of their careers. Maye holds the belt now, comfortably. Infante’s parting line is the one to file away: “Drake Maye is the obvious answer for right now between the two, but a year from now might be different.”