After being released by the Giants during their 1959 training camp,[1] he played one game in the Canadian Football League with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, catching just one pass for 10 yards.

[5] Although scorned by the New York press as an "NFL reject" in 1960, he teamed with Art Powell to form the first professional wide receiver tandem to each gain over 1,000 yards on receptions in a season, with the pair achieving this milestone again in 1962.

In the 1968 AFL Championship Game, a 27–23 Jets victory over the Oakland Raiders, Maynard caught six passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns.

He reported late to Jets' camp that summer and, six weeks later on September 10, Ewbank unceremoniously traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals for a future draft pick.

[11] He appeared in the Redbirds’ first two games for rookie head coach Don Coryell and caught one pass for 18 yards but didn't play in the club's next two contests and was released October 10.

[12] The Rams were coached by Chuck Knox, who'd mentored the New York Jets' offensive line during four of Maynard's prime seasons in Gotham – 1963-'66.

The Rams, however, didn't activate Maynard for their final game of that regular season nor their 27-16 divisional playoff loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Texas Stadium two days before Christmas.

His NFL playing career at an apparent end, the 39-year-old Maynard caught on with the Houston Texans / Shreveport Steamer of the embryonic World Football League[4] the next summer.

But he had just five receptions for the club,[13] which was forced to abruptly move from Houston in September 1974 when Texans' owner R. Steven Arnold unloaded the financially floundering franchise on a group of investors from Shreveport, Louisiana.

Maynard retired as an active player after that tumultuous season[14] but was hired by the newly christened Steamer as their receivers' coach.

He also participated in the coin toss in Super Bowl XXXIII along with his former teammates, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the 1958 NFL Championship, which is also known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played".

[1] Maynard and his wife Marilyn (Weaver), whom he met when she was a student at Texas Western, were married in December 1955 after his junior season.