Maye, the designated franchise quarterback, made his first significant appearance of the preseason in Thursday’s 14-13 loss to the Eagles, giving desperate New England fans reason to cheer.
After leaving Maye on the bench for all but seven plays of the first consumer fraud exhibition game against the Panthers (every other 2024 first-round quarterback got meaningful minutes in Week 1 of the preseason), New England rookie head coach Jerod Mayo let the 21-year-old Maye play two quarters against Philly, and it left us wanting to see more.
Maye scored on his first two series, capping the second drive with a 4-yard touchdown keeper on third down. Both Mayo and general manager Eliot Wolf were interviewed by Patriot State Television (aka Channel 4) during halftime, and both used the word “solid” to describe Maye’s play in the first half.
Steady. It’s the leadership’s preferred characterization when describing their rookie quarterback. They’re being more cautious with Maye than the Fabergé egg from “Risky Business,” not wanting to raise expectations to the level of Drew Bledsoe (No. 1 overall pick in 1993). It’s well-documented that Bill Belichick made mistakes in developing 2021 first-round pick Mac Jones, and everyone in Foxborough is anxious to sell Maye, the young quarterback from North Carolina, short.
But we’re in Boston, and we’re used to wins and instant gratification. If the Patriots get off to the slow start we expected, it’s going to be difficult for them to feed their fans the good Jacoby Brissett on a regular basis.
Maye’s first real game action had a lot of good things going for him. Leading the West Coast offense, he dropped a snap and took a sack, but most of the time he avoided pressure and got rid of the ball when he needed to get rid of it. He made a nice screen pass over a blitz. He made a nifty third-and-5 pass over the middle to rookie wideout Javon Baker. He lined up in the shotgun with an empty backfield. He’s taking a crash course in Footwork 101, but he’s surprisingly athletic.
Maye played the entire second and third quarters (four series) behind most of the Patriots’ first-team offensive line, completing 6 of 11 passes for 47 yards and scoring 10 points.
“I was happy to get in the end zone,” Maye said. “I’m happy to score points. It’s a great opportunity. I think every time you go out there you get more confident. The more reps the better. I’m happy to get some reps and make the most of my opportunities.”
“He was very composed,” Mayo said. “I thought he went out there and did a lot of good things. Hopefully he can build on that… One of the reasons we drafted Drake… he’s a balanced guy, which is a good thing for a quarterback.”
Perhaps Mayes’ best moment came on the Patriots’ first series after halftime, when he dropped back and hit a perfect home run up the middle to Baker, hitting the rookie on his outstretched hands. Baker dropped the pass.
The is what we’ve been looking for. And that’s what will leave fans wanting more if Brissett and Co. get off to a slow start. Brissett is a reliable veteran who probably doesn’t make many mistakes, but there will be a lot of pressure to have Drake Maye play in the first few weeks of this season.
“If he is better than Jacoby, he will play and be in the starting lineup,” Mayo admitted.
Great. Let the noise begin.
▪ Quiz: The Patriots selected Texas defensive tackle Steve McMichael in the third round of the 1980 draft. He was released in 1981 after playing just six games for New England. McMichael went on to have a Hall of Fame career with the Bears. Name six other post-merger (1970) Patriots draft picks who are immortalized in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (answer below).
▪ The folks at HBO have interviewed just about everyone you could imagine and are planning to release their nine-part series on the Celtics sometime next year. It should be spectacular. As far as we know, the folks at HBO have no plans to erase Red Auerbach from Celtics history, Kraft Dynasty LLC/Apple TV style.
▪ Speaking of Krafts, didn’t they learn their lesson in the late 1990s when they didn’t involve Mayor Tom Menino in their plan to build a soccer stadium in South Boston? Menino made sure the project never got off the ground. And now, this summer, it appears that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s lack of involvement contributed to the failure of plans for a Kraft soccer stadium in Everett in the state legislature.
▪ Rob Gronkowski has a cameo in the film “The Instigators” by Casey Affleck and Matt Damon. “Gronk did in our film what he’s done on the field for years for the Patriots: He shows up, gets told what to do and does everything right,” Affleck told USA Today. “He played his game. He executed.” Gronk does not have to keep himself free for the 2025 Oscars.
▪ Patriots second-round rookie receiver Ja’Lynn Polk says, “I take notes on everything… If you’re not with us right now, stay where you are. Because when things get rolling, things change. Don’t jump on the bandwagon.” Deal.
▪ The White Sox entered this weekend 29-93 and were on pace to win 38.5 games. They will almost certainly challenge the 1962 Mets as the worst team in “modern” baseball history. The 1962 Amazin’s went 40-120.
Ed Kranepool, 79, who briefly played for those Mets, told the New York Post: “Leave it to them. That’s not a record I’m proud of.”
The ChiSox had losing streaks of 21 and 14 games this season.
It should be noted that your “coach ’em up” Red Sox used two players (Romy Gonzalez, Brad Keller) that were released by the White Sox in 2024. This is why Alex Cora uses a number of pinch hitters every night. The Red Sox, with their large market, don’t have a lineup of talented everyday players, so Cora struggles every night to win in “matchups.”
▪ Barry Bonds and Jim Rice are among those who have been intentionally walked with the bases loaded during their careers. Last weekend at Yankee Stadium, the mighty Aaron Judge was intentionally walked with two outs and no base in the second inning against the Blue Jays. “I honestly didn’t feel like seeing him swing,” said Jays manager John Schneider.
▪ The Wall Street Journal did the math and reported that Stanford’s Olympic delegation won 39 medals (including 12 gold), more than twice as many as any other college or university. If Stanford were a country, its athletes would have outstripped every other country except the United States, China, Great Britain, France, Australia, Japan and Italy.
▪ Steph Curry’s final three-pointer against France was one of the greatest shots in basketball history. As the shot clock expired and he was blitzed by Nicolas Batum and Evan Fournier, Curry went behind his back, jumped off his left foot and shot from outside the three-point line to win the game.
▪ If you haven’t read too much about the Olympics, read Todd Balf’s Three Kings, the story of rivals who broke through race, class and barriers and ushered in the modern Olympic era in the pool at the 1924 Paris Games. It’s the story of Johnny Weissmuller (of Tarzan fame), who competed against American Duke Kahanamoku and Japan’s Katsuo Takaishi in the same pool where Stanford had just won much of its gold.
▪ RIP Frank Selvy, the former Laker who scored 100 points for Furman against Division 2 Newberry in 1954. Locally, Selvy is best known as the Laker who missed a completely open 15-footer in the final seconds of Game 7 of the 1962 finals at the Old Garden.
Instead of breaking a 100-100 tie, Selvy’s miss (Bill Russell grabbed the rebound) sent the game into overtime and the Celtics won 110-107. That left the Lakers 0-2 to Boston in the Finals. They would lose six more Finals to Auerbach before finally defeating the Celtics in 1985.
▪ The UCLA football team’s student-athletes will fly 22,000 miles this fall to keep up with their game schedule.
▪ RIP Duane Thomas, the independent-minded running back who won a Super Bowl in his rookie season with the Cowboys and spent only a very short time in New England when he was traded to the Patriots in the summer of 1971.
Former Patriots general manager Upton Bell recalls, “I had a discussion with President Nixon, who was a huge football fan, at the 1971 Hall of Fame dinner, and he liked the idea of me trading Thomas. Thomas was a tremendous talent. I traded him the next day, but our coach, John Mazur, didn’t want him because he refused to get into a three-point position before the snap. I traded him back to Dallas, and he ran a 56-yard touchdown against us, resulting in a 44-21 loss that season.”
Thomas, who never played a single down for the Patriots, died on August 4 at the age of 77 in Arizona.
▪ Jonathan Papelbon and Lou Merloni will be in uniform when the 30th Old Time Baseball Game takes place at 7 p.m. on August 22 at St. Peter’s Field in Cambridge. They will also see Jeffrey Maier, the “boy” who obstructed Derek Jeter’s fly ball in the 1996 ALCS. Maier had a fine career at Wesleyan and will wear Tommy Harper’s 1969 Seattle Pilots uniform at St. Peter’s Field.
▪ Congratulations to PR czar George Regan, who will be honored with the 2024 Game Changer Award by the Joe Andruzzi Foundation (which supports cancer patients and their families) at the foundation’s 17th Annual Gala at Gillette Stadium on October 10.
▪ Rest in peace, Chet Stone, the Harvard equipment officer, who died last weekend at his home in Plainville at age 81. Stone was a great amateur athlete (name any sport), a Park League legend, and worked for three decades as the sports equipment manager at Harvard’s Dillon Field House. Longtime Harvard equipment officer Billy Cleary said in 2006, “There is no doubt in my mind that Chet had more influence on our students during his 30 years at Harvard than any other professor.”
▪ Quiz answer: John Hannah (1973), Mike Haynes (’76), Andre Tippett (’82), Curtis Martin (’95), Ty Law (’95), Richard Seymour (2001).
Dan Shaughnessy is a columnist for the Globe. Reach him at [email protected]. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.
