One quarterback has known the offensive system for more than two years. The other began learning the playbook and the new footwork it requires this spring.
One quarterback has started 48 professional games atop 39 games of college experience. The other played in 30 college games.
One quarterback has a deep mental bank of defensive coverages and tricks to manipulate cadence and snap count. The other will learn that in due time.
Which quarterback would you start in 10 days against the Cincinnati Bengals?
The medium- and long-term expectations are high for 2024 No. 3 overall draft pick Drake Maye. But the New England Patriots announced Thursday that veteran Jacoby Brissett will enter the season as starting quarterback.
In eschewing the flashy choice, the Patriots are opting for the wisest move for the franchise’s rebuild. The draft capital they spent on Maye is too pricey to mishandle.
“There are a lot of factors that led to this choice,” head coach Jerod Mayo said in a Thursday news conference. “The hard part is thinking in the short-term and the long-term at the same time. As an organization, though, we feel like Jacoby gives us our best chance to win right now.
“As an organization, we are 100% behind Jacoby.”
Sentiment across the organization trended that way in Yahoo Sports conversations last week with members of the coaching staff, front office and roster. Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt said Brissett is “way more equipped to handle” the looming Sept. 8 opener against the Cincinnati Bengals while vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf noticed the speed at which Brissett was processing and advancing from his first read to his second.
“Jacoby right now is more suited with the skill set and his toolbox to be able to handle 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 guy out there when he doesn’t know exactly how to protect himself from certain looks.”
Especially when those looks are coming from a Lou Anarumo-coordinated Bengals defense that has infamously disrupted quarterback Patrick Mahomes. By Weeks 3 and 4, the Patriots will face the third- and eighth-ranked 2023 defenses on the road in the New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers, respectively.
So Brissett, with his lower ceiling but higher floor and current reality, will open the year as Patriots quarterback. But does Maye have the chance to supplant Brissett as soon as this fall?
“If he beats Jacoby out, I mean, there’s nothing else really to be said — and hopefully he continues to get better,” Mayo told Yahoo Sports last week. “When I talk about competition, it’s not just in training camp. It’s on a day-to-day basis, throughout the season, in the meeting room, during the walkthrough and on the field. So you always have to have that sense of urgency that someone’s going to take your job.
“But I do think that Jacoby has done a fantastic job putting that to the side and just worrying about himself on the field.”
Patriots decision about more than Brissett and Maye’s skills
Mayo’s tenor changed from last week to this as he announced Brissett would start.
Don’t expect the Patriots to publicly count down the days until Maye’s debut.
“We can’t go into the season saying, ‘He’s going to go ‘X’ amount of weeks,’” Mayo said Thursday after he’d alerted both quarterbacks to his decision. “As long as Jacoby is going out there performing the way we all have confidence in him doing, he’ll be our quarterback this season.”
What would it take to change that?
Brissett’s performance will of course impact his job security. Does his veteran savvy show up in defensive reads and protection changes? How quickly does he make decisions in live action, and how does he compensate for what’s expected to be subpar offensive line play?
That last factor — offensive line play — should weigh more heavily on this decision than any Patriots brass will publicly say.
Most coaches consider their offensive lines a work in progress during the first few weeks of the season as full contact, hitting and continuous reps ramp up. There’s a coaching belief across the league that the offensive line has the least realistic training camp preparation, and thus the steepest climb from training camp to regular-season play.
Brissett showed some ability to manage that in his last starting opportunity, an 11-game stretch in Van Pelt’s system with the Cleveland Browns in 2022.
Brissett attempted 110 passes under pressure then, and while he completed just 46.4% (27th), he also generated an efficiency rating of -0.25 EPA per dropback, per Next Gen Stats’ NFL Pro platform. Just nine quarterbacks fared better, Brissett slotting just below Jared Goff and Trevor Lawrence while just above Ryan Tannehill and Justin Herbert.
Can Maye do better?
Maye is on right trajectory even if he isn’t there yet
The Patriots will watch through September and beyond: How effective is their offensive line at pass protection and run blocking? How can Van Pelt adjust game plans to incorporate that data, how does Brissett respond and how ready does Maye look in practice to handle that rocky road?
As a general manager relayed in a training camp conversation: The quickest way to ruin a rookie quarterback is to put him out there without protection and get him hit routinely.
The Patriots would also be wise to give Maye more practice snaps with the first-team line and skill players than he received in training camp before he sees regular-season action.
In the snaps he has received, he’s shown steady progress.
Maye has grown in his ability to check run plays from one side to the other in training camp practices, Mayo said. He showed patience in the pocket on a third-and-5 conversion to Javon Baker, and poise on a snuffed-out bootleg that became a shovel pass. An accurate 28-yard pass to Baker impressed coaches too even though the receiver didn’t ultimately catch it.
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Against admittedly lower caliber of competition and more vanilla defenses, Maye outplayed Brissett in preseason games, Mayo admitted.
“It just starts in practice and also in the game where Drake has played better,” Mayo said Monday. “There are multiple factors that kind of have to go into this decision. One is the total body of work, whether we’re talking about the spring or the entirety of training camp. I would also say oftentimes we forget about just the overall experience that a guy like Jacoby has, which will also be weighted in the decision.
“I’m happy with the way those guys are battling it out.”
That battle will continue. Consider Maye’s opportunity to start a question not of if but of when.
“The guys on offense and defense are starting to really have that confidence in a guy like Drake,” Mayo told Yahoo Sports, “knowing that he’s doing some things that we haven’t had in a long time.”
