Robert Griffin III comes in Drake Maye’s defense after Merril Hoge’s ‘getting a coach fired’ comment

RG3 claimed Drake Maye has the caliber to be a franchise quarterback having all the tools.


Robert Griffin III comes in Drake Maye’s defense after Merril Hoge’s ‘getting a coach fired’ comment

Robert Griffin III comes in Drake Maye's defense after Merril Hoge (Via Awful Annouching/Imago)

Lately, former NFL player Merril Hoge has been quite in the headlines– all for his one comment on the upcoming NFL draft top prospect, Drake Maye. The NFL analyst launched some harsh words toward the young quarterback, claiming he’s the kind of player who will get a coach fired. 

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with him here. As his fellow analyst Robert Griffin III took a sweet time on the recent episode of Get Up to defend the North Carolina quarterback, against Hoge. RG3 cited the game film claiming, that Maye has the caliber to be a franchise quarterback having all the tools. 

If he [Drake Maye] gets a coach fired. It's not that he can't play. It's that that coach can't coach. It's a coach's job to coach a player to help him realize his potential. If a coach gets fired because of Drake Maye, it's simply because he can't coach. And I think he will be a franchise quarterback, so somebody needs to get Merril Hoge a cape. Because he's mad right now, but with that cape, he'll be super mad once Drake Maye becomes a franchise QB.
Robert Griffin III said

 The former NFL quarterback also highlighted Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin’s take on the coaches as he believes, a coach shall not run away from his job. It pertains to getting the full potential of the player, especially unpolished ones such as Maye. 

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Why did Merril Hoge predict GMs’ downfall if Drake Maye got drafted high?

During his appearance on WCCO radio, NFL analyst Hoge issued a warning for the general managers who intend to draft one of the top prospects of Class 2024, Maye. Hoge claimed that if Maye got drafted in the top five or three picks, he would definitely get the GMs fired. 

Drake Maye
Drake Maye (Via Imago)

The reason for such a bold claim was the parallel the analyst found when he compared Maye with former Liberty quarterback Malik Willis. With a high praising college stats, Willis was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the 2022 NFL Draft. His drafting raised a lot of questions about why he wasn’t a top prospect in his Class. 

Hoge believes, that both Willis and Maye share the same “erratic” playing technique, therefore what happened with the former may repeat its course with the latter in the 2024 season. Having the same fate, Maye can also turn out to be a great disappointment.

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