Drake Maye played just six snaps in the New England Patriots’ season opener against the Carolina Panthers last Thursday night.
The rookie quarterback hasn’t done anything spectacular. Or anything stupid, either. So it’s hard to read too much into his first game since being selected third overall by New England in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Still, there are some who are already questioning Maye’s potential, especially because the other rookie quarterbacks who played this weekend showed something special that the Patriots’ new playmaker was unable to show.
Maye could show flashes of his potential in time, although experienced Jacoby Brissett has the best chance of becoming New England’s starting quarterback at the start of the regular season. The 21-year-old was just slow in his first NFL training camp, which lasted until the season opener.
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And herein lies the important reminder: This is Despite it the preseason.
The other rookie quarterbacks may have made strong first impressions on their respective teams, but we should really avoid making blanket judgments so early in their development.
Just ask former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
“I think we’re going to have to evaluate the rookies as they get into the regular season,” Belichick said on Monday on “The Pat McAfee Show,” without specifically mentioning Maye. “The preseason is a good time to get experience and get a little game experience, but especially at the quarterback position, the defenses are very simple. There’s not a lot of game strategy, and when you’re on defense, you play, let’s say, three players deep in the run of the game — from the first quarter to the middle of the third quarter until another group closes the game. You do the same things the whole game. You don’t plan a play. You don’t show too much. You just try to do the things you’ve practiced.
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“I think what the quarterbacks see in the preseason and in joint practices and then what they see during the regular season is going to be quite different. It’s almost like playing an All-Star game where you only see a handful of coverages.”
Maye completed just two of three passes for 19 yards in the Patriots’ 17-3 preseason win over the Panthers last week. Bailey Zappe, a holdover from last year’s squad, saw the most play behind center, while rookie Joe Milton III did the most scoring.
We’ll likely see more of Maye in New England’s second preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night, but as we said – good, bad or mediocre – we should hold off on making any concrete assessments until he finally takes the field in a regular season game.
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“I think the coaches are evaluating how well the players are doing the things that they’ve been taught and that they’ve been practicing,” Belichick said Monday of the preseason. “So the fundamentals, the communication within the limited, watered-down schemes that they’re using and just the live competition that you don’t get to see in practice.”
While Belichick didn’t offer a specific evaluation of Maye, it’s probably worth keeping his comments in mind as the preseason progresses and we overanalyze the Patriots’ quarterback staff in the wake of the struggles at the position since the departure of Tom Brady.
