Five things to know about Patriots’ decision to start Drake Maye originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
It’s a new era in New England.
After five weeks watching starter Jacoby Brissett quarterback one of the least productive offenses in the NFL, the Patriots are making a change. According to multiple team sources, they are rolling with rookie No. 3 overall pick Drake Maye against the Texans in Week 6.
Here are five things to know about the choice before we hear from head coach Jerod Mayo and others within the organization on Wednesday afternoon at One Patriot Place…
Maye is ready… enough
Is he fully prepared for what he’s about to face? Is he going to be on top of every in-game adjustment and comfortable with every situation thrown his way? Of course not. But, as is the case for most young signal-callers, that likely won’t come until Maye is multiple years into his professional career.
What he has done is show, from the end of training camp until now, that he’s capable of taking the field and holding his own. It’s why the Patriots felt comfortable with him as their Week 1 backup, one snap away from meaningful reps.
By Mayo’s admission, Maye outperformed Brissett at the end of training camp following a late-summer push where he operated at his position with more confidence and decisiveness. Prior to that point, Maye appeared to some decision-makers to be deferring to the veteran Brissett. But he responded to hard coaching in camp and ended up making a case to take the starting job outright.
The Patriots opted to go with Brissett, but since then, Maye has only continued to impress with his performance on the practice field. He has received 30 percent of the starting reps and has steadily shown more growth in his ability to play within structure — both of the Patriots offense and of opposing offenses when asked to run the scout team.
Understanding practice does not fully replicate game reps, he’s impressed teammates with how he’s handled blitz situations and third-down scenarios. And his athleticism and arm strength has been apparent.
Need him on the move
One team source indicated that Maye’s ability to get out on the move and make plays with his legs is one of the reasons why the Patriots — who have been forced to play off-schedule because of a patchwork offensive line — are turning to him and hoping for better results.
Expect the Patriots offense to be tweaked by offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, who believes that it is vital to scheme around the players on the field. That could mean more shotgun formations and more move-the-pocket concepts for the rookie.
A fluid athlete with the ability to throw off-platform, Maye’s running should help extend drives, but his ability to help buy himself more time behind the line — not to mention the aggressive mindset to test defenses deep he displayed in college — could make the Patriots a more dynamic passing attack.
Brissett is 18th in the NFL among qualifying quarterbacks with a deep-passing (pass travels at least 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage) percentage of 11.1. But he’s 33rd out of 35 passers in completion percentage (20 percent) and 34th in yards per attempt (4.5). Given where the Patriots offense sits in a number of different offensive statistical categories, the team is hoping Maye’s physical skill set will give them a lift.
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The challenge for Van Pelt and the offensive staff will be balancing the use of Maye’s legs to benefit the offense, while also trying to get him to master the footwork he’s been taught since his arrival to Foxboro. In his lone regular-season action to this point, 16 snaps against the Jets in Week 3, Van Pelt told me he saw some of Maye’s footwork training scrapped under the threat of pressure.
“There was some things there to correct,” he said. “That’s usually the case the first time you’re out for live bullets. It can change your feet and revert back. … We’re still a work in progress there.
“But the strides he’s made of the course of the spring and the summer camp and the games in preseason, obviously he’ll be able to [improve] and take it to the next level. But there’s some stuff there we can clean up from the game. It was a great learning experience for him, and he’ll get better because of it.”
Tough spot for Brissett
The Patriots lead the NFL in pressure percentage allowed, according to NextGen Stats, at 48.3 percent. Perhaps of even greater concern to the Patriots? The team also leads the league with an unblocked pressure rate of 13.5 percent. At some point, even an experienced veteran like Brissett was going to feel the impact of all those pressures — not to mention the 49 hits he’s absorbed through five games.
One coach pointed to a rep during the loss to the 49ers as indicative of what the team — and Brissett in particular — has had to deal with from a pressure standpoint.
On a three-step drop, designed to get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands with alacrity, Brissett took a hard shot to the chest while hitting Ja’Lynn Polk along the left sideline for a 21-yard back-shoulder completion. The throw was on point. Still, the pressure allowed on that rep was alarming.
The Patriots’ inability to produce in the passing game has been a source of frustration for the coaching staff dating back to training camp and reared its head in the regular season as early as Week 2 against the Seahawks, when Brisstt threw for 149 yards (5.5 per attempt) in an overtime defeat.
Brissett slowly left the locker room Sunday after losing to the Dolphins. He moved gingerly and bowed his head. While Brissett’s toughness in the face of physical harm has been admirable — coaches and players alike have lauded him for his leadership in difficult circumstances — Mayo clearly felt as though there were plays left on the field Sunday that might’ve been executed had the quarterback play been better.
“It just wasn’t good enough,” Mayo said. “I thought we played well enough defensively and on special teams to win the football game.
“Look, as the quarterback, and he understands this, he touches the ball on every single play and we didn’t win the game, or score enough points to win the game. I think he would echo that same sentiment that it wasn’t good enough.”
‘Progress’ from the line
There was optimism in the building Monday that the Patriots would be able to play the same offensive line in two consecutive weeks for the first time this season Sunday against the Texans.
Against Miami, New England had five different players starting at the five different positions compared to the unit the rolled out against the Niners the week prior: left tackle Vederian Lowe, left guard Michael Jordan, center Nick Leverett, right guard Mike Onwenu and right tackle Demontrey Jacobs. While far from perfect — they allowed nine pressures in under 2.5 seconds, and six of those were allowed in under 2.0 seconds — Mayo credited them with showing some “progress” in their latest outing.
The team relayed that Maye’s start date wasn’t impacted by the season-ending shoulder issue suffered by David Andrews in Week 4. But the unsettled nature of the pass-protectors up front was a concern for team decision-makers as it related to Maye’s timeline.
Sunday’s game against the Texans will provide a greater challenge for Maye’s blockers. Houston has racked up the fourth-most pressures in the NFL through five weeks (73), and it is the owner of the NFL’s top pressure rate (42 percent) thanks to edge rushers Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson.
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This had been building
The Patriots always planned on playing Maye this year. They planned on playing him enough to find out what they had in him prior to building the roster for his second campaign, per sources. It didn’t matter if the line looked porous all year or if the receivers had continuous trouble separating. He was going to play and play a significant amount.
There was a window of multiple weeks the Patriots had targeted for Maye’s debut, hoping to give themselves the best opportunity to A) get him in for extended action and B) allow him a chance to succeed by giving him a line that was settled to some degree (understanding it would always be limited).
Was that timeline expedited? Mayo will answer that question on Wednesday. Indications received from team sources last week, prior to the Dolphins game, were that this move was impending.
One rival team executive expressed surprise at the decision to name Maye the starter, saying that sticking with Brissett and giving Maye more time behind the scenes was “the best approach.”
But the Patriots were desperate for offensive improvement. And they had a potential answer, the face of the franchise, sitting on the bench. Healthy. Practicing well. Waiting for a chance.
Now the Patriots are hoping he gives them one.
