Patriots
“It’s got to be a long-term vision of where this guy is gonna be. He’s gonna be a really good player.”
Drake Maye entered the 2025 season as the expected franchise savior for a Patriots team in desperate need of a bounce-back campaign.
It took just one game for some of that optimism to dissipate, with Maye and the Patriots’ offense laboring during New England’s Week 1 loss to the Raiders.
Maye looked the part of a potential franchise QB in the first half of New England’s game against Las Vegas, with the second-year signal caller completing 14 of his 20 throws for 150 yards and a touchdown.
But, Maye opened the second half by throwing an interception that eventually resulted in a Raiders touchdown on the subsequent drive.
After that momentum swing, Maye and New England’s offense couldn’t settle into any sort of groove, with the Patriots punting on their next four drives as their hopes for a late rally were snuffed out.
Maye’s struggles down the stretch have raised concerns about his “timid” play — as described by Rob Gronkowski — as well as questions from the media about whether or not there is too much on Maye’s plate when it comes to learning the ins and outs of offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels’ intricate offensive system.
But, speaking Thursday at Gillette Stadium, McDaniels defended his QB amid the growing criticism while pushing back against the assertion that the Patriots’ coaching staff has had to curtail just how much information it was feeding Maye as far as the playbook.
“No. We haven’t given him any more than what we’ve given him all year, which is not too much,” McDaniels said Thursday of the discourse regarding how much info the team was putting on Maye’s “plate” out of the gate this season.
Even with Maye’s lapses in the second half on Sunday, McDaniels chalked up those struggles as the expected learning curves and growing pains that come with a young QB in the NFL — especially one learning a new offense after Alex Van Pelt installed more of a West-Coast system in 2024.
“We have to understand it’s his first game in our system,” McDaniels said. “I’m focused really on the process of him getting better every day. Because I think the view of it is, it’s got to be a long-term vision of where this guy is gonna be. He’s gonna be a really good player.”
“The biggest challenge for me is, he’s a young quarterback and he’s learning through all these experiences. He’s the right guy, so we’re going to have an opportunity to continue to grow and improve and get better. I think [I’d] would be really jumping ahead and jumping the gun if I tried to sit here and pinpoint one or two things. We work on a lot of things to try to get better every day, and he’s gonna improve.”
The Patriots will look to implement a more well-rounded approach to their offense in Week 2 against the Dolphins, as Maye was forced to throw the ball 46 total times during that loss to the Raiders.
An emphasis on the run game — especially with some talented backs available between TreVeyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson — would put some of the pressure off of Maye as he tries to find his footing under center this season.
But, beyond any adjustments or tweaks to New England’s offensive gameplan, McDaniels stressed that the most important thing for Maye moving forward is just logging more snaps at the NFL level.
“I’m [taking] the global view with him as quarterback,” McDaniels said. “Quarterback is a really difficult position to play. There are a million things you do every day between every play.
“All kinds of things: pocket movement, play-faking, handling pressures, seeing defenses. There can’t be one or two things. I’ll never boil it down to that, because it would be doing them a disservice. We have a lot of work that needs to get done every day.”
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