There isn’t much hope for New England’s 2024 season right now. The team is in the midst of rebuilding after putting it off for a few seasons, and the trade of their top defenseman Matthew Judon this week made it clear to fans that this is going to be a long and arduous year.
So it’s no wonder people are looking for any glimmer of hope they can find, and on Thursday they got it with a solid performance from UNC’s No. 3 overall pick Drake Maye.
In the Patriots’ first preseason game, Maye won a series, leaving fans feeling frustrated as they wanted to know what to expect with such a high draft pick. Then reports of a rough practice against the Eagles sent the masses into a panic. Before Thursday’s game, they felt like they needed something to give them a glimmer of hope.
After an unsuccessful start by presumed starter Jacoby Brissett, Maye entered the game and immediately made plays familiar to Carolina fans. He ran, found open receivers to pass to on third down, drove the ball to the Philly 33-yard line and broke through the Patriots with a field goal. His next drive was more assured, taking a turnover from the New England defense and scoring his first NFL touchdown on a third-down run that had UNC fans wondering how many times they had seen this play before.
The Patriots then let Maye come on the field at the start of the second half, gave him the feel of a successful two-minute drive and made the necessary adjustments at halftime. He showed he was a rookie by botching the snap on the first attempt and then struggling to get the yards back on the second attempt.
But on the third attempt, Maye made a play that made it clear why he was so fond of the third pick and that caused a change in mood among the fans in New England.
When I asked Javon Baker about this drop, he said Drake Maye threw a “perfect ball.”
“It was just something I should have done – a game I should have made.”pic.twitter.com/hKyZ4fEzX1
— Sean T. McGuire (@BySeanMcGuire) 16 August 2024
The collective gasp of New England fans, ready to cheer just because Baker couldn’t handle the ball, showed just how much energy there was in Maya’s potential. It wasn’t just the pass, it was the confidence he had in the pocket, the footwork to get free, and the ease with which he threw the ball 50 yards and placed it where only Baker could reach it.
The change in Maye’s performance was directly attributed to a simple idea: Instead of forcing him into a brand new system in the form of the West Coast Offense, offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt talked to Maye about some of the plays he ran at UNC. Maye confirmed this in his postgame press conference:
After a weekend in which some of the other top draft picks were successful precisely because the offenses were tailored to what they knew, the Patriots seem to have hit a nerve in developing Drake Maye: They’re running some plays he knows and starting to connect them to the system they want to implement.
On Friday, the talk in New England was that Maye has shown enough for the Patriots to at least consider putting him in the starting lineup this season. Coach Jerod Mayo said the competition for the quarterback job isn’t over. Perhaps this is just a way to appease the media and encourage Brissett to play better — remember, Maye did this against Philadelphia’s second line of defense, and New England’s defensive line isn’t exactly considered one of the best in the league. Still, it’s at least a discussion that’s being had after a few weeks of people wondering how far behind he is.
So it is safe to say that he impressed people with this performance.
It will be interesting to see if the Patriots stick with their plan of basically treating Maye like a redshirt year, or if the dynamic is such that he will take his hit early. Either way, it’s pretty clear that New England isn’t going to be a competitive team this season — but sometimes the best way to learn is to get out there and do something rather than just watch. We’ll see how the Patriots handle Maye next weekend.
