UNC QB Drake Maye is about to get drafted by an NFL team. But which one? Rumors abound.

Drake Maye is almost done with one of the weirdest parts of every high-profile football player’s career — the long and somewhat awkward run-up to the NFL Draft. By Thursday night, some team will select the former UNC football star, likely at No. 3 overall but maybe elsewhere, and he can begin again, this time for real with a new team.

His family has flown into Detroit, site of the 2024 NFL Draft. All three of his older brothers plan to be at the event, including Luke, who got time off from the pro basketball team he’s playing for in Japan. Father Mark Maye, another former UNC quarterback, is admittedly more nervous than Drake, wondering about all the potential draft and trade scenarios that might play out.

The family’s outfits have been selected. Drake promises some sort of nod to Carolina blue with his own.

What isn’t clear, though, is the team.

In Detroit, where I caught up with Maye Wednesday on a raw, 40-degree day after he took part in a football clinic for local Special Olympians, speculation about his landing spot was rampant. It is taken as conventional wisdom here (for whatever that’s worth) that Chicago will take Southern Cal QB Caleb Williams at No. 1, Washington will select LSU QB Jayden Daniels at No. 2 and then Maye, most likely, will go No. 3.

But to which team?

“I wish I knew,” Maye said.

New England currently holds that No. 3 pick. But the Patriots, possibly, will trade it to someone else, like Minnesota, the New York Giants or a wild-card team that has yet to emerge.

Said NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah on Wednesday of New England possibly dealing the pick that may be used to select Maye: “It would take that kind of ‘Godfather’ offer, but I think there’s one team, maybe two, that are going to extend it. ... I would lean toward New England staying and taking Drake Maye. But I think Minnesota is going to try and move heaven and earth to get up there.”

As for the 21-year-old Maye, he said he would happily go anywhere, whether heaven and earth are involved or not.

Maye has had to come to terms with the fact, though, that his childhood wish of being drafted by and playing for the Carolina Panthers straight out of college won’t come to fruition.

Raised as a Panthers fan

The Panthers don’t even have a first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft due to the controversial deal they made to draft QB Bryce Young No. 1 overall in 2023.

Growing up in the Charlotte area, Maye was an enormous Panthers fan. He owned a Steve Smith No. 89 jersey. He attended Super Bowl 50 in California with his father when he was 12 years old and watched, disappointed, as Carolina lost to New England.

“That’s always what you dream about, you know, playing for your home city and playing in Charlotte,” Maye said. “That place means a lot to me. But at the same time, I’m kind of ready to get out of there and get to a new city.”

After playing two sports in high school in the Charlotte area at both Myers Park and Hough, Maye had a spectacular career at UNC. He threw for 63 total touchdowns, ran for 16 more and always gave the Tar Heels a chance to win.

An ‘assembly required’ QB?

Still, Jeremiah said, Maye will be an “assembly required” type of quarterback for whatever team picks him.

I asked Jeremiah what he meant by that.

“Look, when you watch him in 2022, he looked like a little bit of a different player,” Jeremiah said. “They (UNC) had a little bit better offensive line. A little bit better supporting cast. I thought he got into some bad habits this year. ... I thought he got a little elongated. ... He just got real long with his delivery. ... But again, there are no perfect players. He’s got size, arm strength athleticism, work ethic, leadership, intelligence — all that’s there. That’s the foundation for being a great player. He has work to do, no question, in terms of cleaning some things up mechanically. But from everything I’ve been told, he’ll put that in.”

Some of that work for Maye in the past several months has come alongside former N.C. State and NFL star quarterback Philip Rivers, who worked twice a week with Maye and other QBs in Mobile, Ala., and occasionally beat all of the college QBs in throwing competitions.

Maye said Wednesday that his training time with Rivers had been “sweet,” even though Rivers “went to the wrong ACC school.”

The hours before an NFL Draft sometimes feel like the hours before a Super Bowl. There is so much buildup for a single event that people feel compelled to fill up the space, sometimes with odd questions.

Among the things Maye was asked by other reporters Wednesday:

▪ What NFL teams have black as the predominant color on their helmets? (Maye got a few of them right).

▪ His ideal golf foursome? (Tiger Woods, Scottie Scheffler and Michael Jordan).

▪ The best QB to pick if you own a fantasy football team? (Josh Allen).

▪ What is his favorite monument in Washington? (Maye stumbled a little bit on this one. “I need to get some monument research,” he said, before deciding on the Lincoln Memorial. He then laughed and said he apologized to the North Carolina faithful for not knowing more monument names off the top of his head).

▪ Most famous contact in his phone? (Nick Saban, from “back when I was getting recruited.” Maye originally committed to Alabama before instead going to UNC).

▪ A three-word description of himself as quarterback? (“Competitor. Winner. Fun.”)

‘I’m ready to go’

Maye said one of his goals during his rookie season would be to become an NFL starter and the other to “make the playoffs like CJ Stroud did.”

The money? That’s coming regardless. There will be millions from the NFL, and he’s marketable — Maye just signed a deal with Lowe’s. He also will have the advantage of going to a team that will do everything in its power to make it work, as teams almost always do for Top-10 NFL picks.

For all that, though, top NFL picks — especially at QB — only work out about half the time. One only needs to look at the example of former UNC quarterback Mitch Trubisky, appointed a QB savior in 2017 when he was drafted No. 2 overall by the Chicago Bears and now relegated to the status of an NFL journeyman/backup.

For Maye, though, he’s soaking things in rather than wringing his hands about the possibilities. As the fourth of four kids, he has never been much of a worrier. He seemed most excited Wednesday about reuniting with his family (Maye’s longtime girlfriend is also scheduled to be at the draft) and all his brothers for the events in Detroit.

“I’ve got two brothers who have national championships,” Maye said, referring to Luke’s NCAA basketball title with UNC and his brother Cole being part of a University of Florida baseball team that also won a national championship. “Maybe the NFL Draft will trump that. But I don’t think it will. ... But anywhere I go, I’m ready to go.”