FOXBOROUGH, Massachusetts – The New England Patriots personnel ran out of time.
During their visit to North Carolina’s Pro Day in March, Patriots coaches and personnel officials wanted to review Drake Maye’s worst and then his best game.
Maye had the pleasure of choosing which film to review.
But when the quarterback suffered a loss to North Carolina State in November, he explained his mistakes in detail.
How could more than a quarter of the game pass before Maye completed a pass? How could NC State confront the Tar Heels with four three-and-outs and a lost fumble in their first five drives? Two interceptions followed in the second half.
Maye immersed himself so deeply in the long list of lessons he had learned that time ran out before the Patriots could analyze his best game. And yet, his future employers had learned a lot.
“Some of the coaches gave him a couple of opportunities to take the blame off of himself and take someone to task, but he just didn’t do it,” Patriots executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf told Yahoo Sports. “He just said, ‘No, that’s something I could have done better. That’s on me for not preparing him.’
“A 21-year-old boy was in a room where we didn’t bully him but gave him the opportunity to deny blame and he behaved. That was impressive.”
The Patriots didn’t select a quarterback third in the NFL Draft just because he’d be responsible if things went wrong. The franchise was attracted to Maye’s accuracy, athleticism and throwing ability, as well as his leadership qualities.
But as the Patriots enter an era where coaches and general managers alike recognize the work still ahead, New England needed a quarterback willing to learn from mistakes and improve a team at every stage of its life cycle, including what some would call an offensive rebuild. They need a quarterback who isn’t afraid to redefine the Patriots in the team’s first season without Bill Belichick this millennium. And they need a quarterback who will grow with the franchise well beyond the 2024 season.
Look at the Patriots’ decision regarding Maye’s starting schedule from this perspective.
“The Patriots are an up-and-coming team that’s going to be competitive,” Wolf said in an interview with Yahoo Sports on Thursday. “I think everyone knows we’re not there yet. We’re not quite where we need to be and there are some areas we need to improve. But I think we’re going to see progress. Our defense was good last year, we expect that to continue. Our offense has a new system and a new scheme.”
“We are on the right track.”
Mayes development since his arrival in New England in detail
If you ask any Patriots manager what areas Maye’s development has been strongest in, you’ll get a different answer every time.
Quarterback coach TC McCartney was grateful for a third-and-5 conversion to Javon Baker in last weekend’s preseason game, where Maye stayed in the pocket and found Baker up the middle for 12 yards.
“A play we’ve been working on, repeating the footwork and understanding the coverage that he’s seen,” McCartney told Yahoo Sports.
Maye combined his footwork with his eyes to ensure the rhythm of the pass. The rookie also demonstrated the left-footed forward technique that offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt switches Patriots quarterbacks to because of their technique.
Van Pelt remembers the accuracy Maye showed on a missed third down conversion to Baker four snaps later. The rookie quarterback demonstrated accuracy and finesse as his ball sailed through the air 28 yards, though Baker couldn’t intercept it. For a team that plans to put an emphasis on the running game in the near future, the Patriots want a quarterback who can make those long throws.
And then there’s the easily missed 4-yard dump in between that Wolf mentioned.
Maye was setting up a bootleg on first-and-10 with 12:55 left in the second quarter when Philadelphia Eagles edge rusher Nolan Smith just wouldn’t bite. Smith smothered Maye and even received a penalty for helmet-to-helmet contact. The pursuit cost Maye time to throw, so he threw a pass to tight end Mitchell Wilcox, who was 2 yards behind the original starting line of the play.
“Drake jumped in the air to get the ball past him and changed the angle of his arm and the defender headbutted him in the face,” Wolf said. “It was just the kind of play where you could tell, ‘OK, this guy is playing the game. He’s not doing too much, not thinking too much about it.’ So it was good.”
These seemingly ordinary moments have marked Maye’s progress in training camp. Sure, his strong arm is capable of making plays that head coach Jerod Mayo said “we haven’t seen in a long time.” But moments of improvement also include being able to read coverages more quickly to get to Maye’s second read and shifting running plays from one side to the other more seamlessly.
Maye’s style of expression has become more familiar, and he is increasingly more relaxed about the inevitable missed throws.
“Everyone says, ‘Wow, this guy has a cannon,’ or ‘This guy is so smart,'” Mayo told Yahoo Sports. “But what can he do when something goes wrong? And how do you pull the nose of a plane up? Drake definitely has the ability to do that.”
When the time comes for him to start, Maye will need this.
But when will that be?
Mayo preaches “sense of urgency that someone is going to take your job”
The Patriots could look at their starting lineup decision from three angles.
You may ask yourself: Which quarterback has the most potential? Which development gives him a better chance of beating the Cincinnati Bengals on September 8th? Which quarterback is the best option on the field for the franchise now – with consequences that will affect the team’s development for at least half a decade?
No one in franchise leadership disputes that veteran Jacoby Brissett, the team’s current starter, will match Maye’s production potential in areas such as improvisation and creative arm angles. But Brissett has experience with Van Pelt’s system that Maye doesn’t, and experience with left-foot forward progressions that the rookie doesn’t. Brissett’s mental store of NFL defenses, including that of the Bengals’ Week 1 opponent, is far more complex. Brissett can manipulate cadences in ways Maye can’t yet and find answers to defensive questions more quickly.
“Jacoby is better suited right now with his skill set and his toolbox to deal with a lot of the issues that come up, and Drake is still learning that,” Van Pelt told Yahoo Sports. “You don’t want to put a player on the field who doesn’t know exactly how to protect himself from certain looks. That’s the whole process right now. And I think at some point, if and when that happens, it will be obvious to everybody.”
“But at the moment I’m very happy with what Jacoby can do.”
Conversations with several coaches and executives indicate that Brissett will begin the season for a Patriots team whose offensive line and technical players pale in comparison to a team like the one that first-overall draft pick Caleb Williams found in Chicago.
They point to Brissett starting in early games against stout defenses like the San Francisco 49ers and New York Jets, giving Maye more time to learn after a college career that included just 26 starts. (Keep in mind that fellow rookie Bo Nix started 61 college games and Jayden Daniels started 55 before both were put in the starting lineup this week.)
The Patriots will continue to evaluate whether Brissett is still the best man for the job as the season progresses. That decision will be influenced by the team’s players, Brissett’s performance and Maye’s development.
But at the moment, according to Van Pelt, Brissett is “far better prepared for opening day.”
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A change in philosophy before the first week would be a surprise.
And yet …
“My thing with Drake is, when he’s ready to go, and we talk about competition all the time, if he beats Jacoby, there’s really nothing left to say – and hopefully he’ll keep getting better,” Mayo said. “When I talk about competition, it’s not just in training camp, it’s every day throughout the season, in the meeting room, during walk-ons and on the field.
“So you always have to feel like someone is taking your job away from you. But I think Jacoby did a fantastic job of putting that aside and just taking care of himself on the field.”
