Amid what has been a mostly lackluster training camp and preseason for the Patriots, the latest round of controversy striking the team is actually quite a good thing. Rookie Drake Maye, the No. 3 pick in the 2024 draft and the undisputed future of the franchise, closed the preseason with such a strong showing against Washington that there is now ample cause to make him the starter right out of the gate.
That was not, of course, the Patriots’ plan. The idea with Maye was always to have him sit behind veteran Jacoby Brissett for at least half a season or so, and have Maye emerge in the last part of the year to get him some experience he can carry into 2025.
But Maye’s 13-for-20, 126-yard performance, which included a cool-headed 88-yard drive for a touchdown, against the Commanders seems to show he made enough progress to get him on the field sooner rather than later. The fact that Brissett has struggled, too, has only pushed the notion that it should be Maye’s job.
While there is some hemming and hawing over whether it might be better for Maye to wait, ESPN analyst and seven-year NFL veteran Louis Riddick had a very clear thought.
“Start. Drake. Maye,” Riddick wrote on Twitter/X on Sunday evening.
Drake Maye ‘Our 2nd-Best Quarterback’: Jerod Mayo
Patriots coach Jerod Mayo has not exactly been crystal clear on his intentions at the position. The Patriots still have Brissett as the starter, and though Brissett injured his shoulder and came out after one series on Sunday, Mayo said that was always the plan. He also said he’d decide on a starter by Monday night, but made clear where he is leaning.
“I would like to sit here and say, 100%, he’s our second-best quarterback on our roster right now,” Mayo said of Maye.
Mayo is wrong about that, of course. Maye is the best quarterback on the roster. But the problem is, the Patriots offensive line is among the worst in the league, if not the worst. The real issue with starting Maye is not so much that Brissett is the better quarterback, it’s that he is better prepared to take the punishment to which the O-line will surely expose him.
At 21 years old, with the weight of the organization upon him, the Patriots want to keep Maye and his future upright and intact as much as possible.
Patriots Could Have NFL’s Worst Roster
Former Patriots star offensive lineman Damien Woody weighed in on the subject, too, saying he can see a path for Maye to start in Week 1.
“The ability, you see him get better, and better, and better,” Woody said on ESPN’s “Unsportsmanlike” on Monday. “Would it shock me if Drake Maye started Week 1? It wouldn’t shock me. Watch the Patriots this preseason. The kid has gotten better.”
But he conceded that the team around Maye might not be good enough to warrant him starting. That starts with the offensive line, but also includes an iffy group of receivers built around Kendrick Bourne and KJ Osborn, with second-year man Pop Douglas and a room full of question marks.
Many a highly drafted quarterback has been left on the dustbin of NFL history not because of a lack of talent, but because they were forced into a bad situation.
“I would say that more quarterbacks are broken by the broken culture of their organization coming into the National Football League—it’s not that these guys can’t play, it’s that the organizations do them a disservice by putting them in before they’re ready to play,” Woody said. “And I think that’s kinda what you’ve got to weigh with Drake Maye. Do you want to put him in a situation where, you look at this New England roster, it’s a very flawed roster.”
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