Is Drake Maye the Best Buy-Low QB in Dynasty?

Not anymore. Drake Maye finished as the QB2 in fantasy points last year, helped New England to an 11-2 finish, and entered real MVP conversation down the stretch. The latest Dynasty Value Score has caught that leap: he is fourth among quarterbacks. A.J. Brown is extra ceiling, not the reason the price finally moved.

The quick answer

Maye scores an 8,045 Dynasty Value Score — fourth among quarterbacks — and projects for 339.7 half-PPR points in 2026, 20.0 per game. That is still a step under his 351.5-point 2025, and it now sits next to Bo Nix (8,068) instead of behind Goff and Stroud. He is 24, in year three of an offense built around him, with a genuine star receiver added to the room.

The leap from year one to year two

Maye's rookie season was rough by the numbers — 177.1 half-PPR points, a 4-13 team, and a head coach fired after the year. Year two looked nothing like it. New England hired Mike Vrabel and brought back Josh McDaniels as offensive coordinator, and the results were immediate: an 11-2 finish, a 10-game win streak, and Maye finishing as fantasy's QB2 with 4,394 passing yards and 31 touchdowns. His Next Gen Stats back up that it wasn't just a product of scheme or matchups — he ranked first among all quarterbacks in completion percentage over expectation, a real measure of accuracy and decision-making rather than system-driven volume.

The move that raises his ceiling further

New England traded a future first-round pick to Philadelphia for A.J. Brown this offseason, giving Maye a legitimate top-tier receiving target for the first time in his career. Early reports from camp have been positive on both sides — Brown has spoken about building real chemistry with Maye, and Maye himself has praised how quickly the connection has come together. New England also added receiver Romeo Doubs, giving Maye a deeper group of weapons than he has had at any point since entering the league.

That matters because most of Maye's 2025 breakout happened without a true alpha receiver on the roster. McDaniels has talked about spreading the ball around rather than building the offense entirely around one player, and Maye has echoed that same approach publicly — but adding a receiver of Brown's caliber gives the offense a higher ceiling regardless of how the target distribution shakes out.

The model finally put him with the other young QBs

Maye's 8,045 DVS now sits just behind Caleb Williams at 8,438 and Bo Nix at 8,068, and just ahead of Patrick Mahomes at 7,878. Jared Goff (7,214) and C.J. Stroud (6,016) are a tier down. Dak Prescott is 6,014. A single huge season is still a thin sample. The latest board stopped treating that as a reason to leave him in the mid-6,000s.

The leftover buy-low case only works if a league-mate is still using last month's number. On our board he is a top-four quarterback with a rushing floor most of that group lacks, and a better receiving corps than he had for the breakout itself.

Where he stacks up against the field

Trevor Lawrence (7,192) sits just outside this cluster. Nix is the closer comp on both score and age. If 2025 was closer to Maye's real level than his rookie season was, the board has already moved him there. Compare the rest of the position in our Top 20 QB Dynasty Value rankings, and the undervalued case one tier over in our Bo Nix write-up.

The bottom line

If you're holding Maye, last year's breakout plus this year's receiver upgrade both point toward a true dynasty QB1, and the score now agrees. If you're targeting him in a trade, you are paying a top-four price, not last month's mid-tier discount.

Model a trade for Maye on the Dynasty Trade Calculator — his score already treats 2025 as the new normal, not a peak you can still buy cheap.