Drake Maye’s first NFL start: Examining the good and the bad from the Patriots QB

Drake Maye’s first NFL start Sunday offered a little bit of everything, though it came with enough positives to finally offer some optimism for New England Patriots fans who have watched their team lose 19 of its last 24 games.

Maye was 20-of-33 passing for 243 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions. Still, it was just one game.

For those clamoring for the Patriots to start Maye, there were enough impressive throws to gloat. They could note that he threw more touchdown passes Sunday than Jacoby Brissett had in five games.

But for those who wanted to keep the 22-year-old on the bench, giving him more time to learn behind Brissett, there’s credence to that approach as well. After all, Maye took some massive hits and turned the ball over three times.

To better understand his debut, Chad Graff, our Patriots beat writer, and Nick Baumgardner, one of our NFL Draft analysts, got together to break down Maye’s performance, see what translated from his scouting report coming out of North Carolina and where he appears to have improved.

Chad: All right, Nick, I think there’s one place to start: Maye’s 40-yard bomb that fell perfectly into the hands of receiver Kayshon Boutte. It was a thing of beauty. The first half really hadn’t gone well to that point, and Maye had missed a couple of throws. But that one reignited Gillette Stadium, and he seemed to get rolling after that.

The Patriots ranked 30th in explosive pass percentage last season and rank 31st this season. They simply need to hit more downfield plays, especially while defenses are loading the box to stop the run.

So let’s start with the deep passing game. I remember in the pre-draft process that Jayden Daniels was the quarterback scouts were raving about for his ability to throw deep and outside the numbers. But how did Maye project as a downfield passer? And did you see anything Sunday that offers hope or concern for the Patriots?

.@DrakeMaye2‘s first @NFL TD is to @KayshonBoutte1

: CBS pic.twitter.com/Oi7BpFvq6H

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) October 13, 2024

Nick: The most enticing thing about Maye as a prospect was his full-body explosion, which includes his arm. Patriots fans have already seen a bit of Maye’s athleticism in open space. But don’t think about his speed — think about his burst. Patrick Mahomes’ personal trainer once explained how even the superstar QB’s spine was explosive, meaning he could create torque and velocity from any body or arm angle. Maye is not Mahomes, but he has similar physical traits in that there’s really no limit to how deep he can chuck it.

The best part about the big throw to Boutte was how it combined all the natural talent people saw from Maye in college, plus some of the growth the Patriots are clearly looking for early in his career. One of Maye’s big issues right now is footwork. It can be sloppy — bordering on reckless. When a route calls for a five-step drop, a hitch and a throw, the ball needs to be out of his hands after he comes up from that hitch. We’re still seeing instances of Maye bouncing around too much or fading in the pocket.

However, when his feet are right and he becomes an in-rhythm deep thrower, he’s as good as you’ll see at any level of football. He had some accuracy issues in this game, which crept up now and then in college because of inconsistent feet, but you also saw his downfield mindset. He and Caleb Williams were the most fearless down-the-middle quarterbacks in the 2024 NFL Draft class. When Maye gets a better grasp of the offense and fundamental consistency, we’ll see more of that come out.

Chad: The next thing I wanted to get to is Maye’s athleticism and scrambling ability.

There’s no sugarcoating the offensive line that’s in front of him. It’s bad. The Patriots had their best pass-blocking game of the season on Sunday, and their pressure rate allowed against the Texans (33 percent) only ranked 11th best among teams in Week 6.

So part of Maye’s athleticism has to be viewed through the lens of a bad offensive line. Yet I thought it was still impressive how he moved, both throwing on the run and scrambling. He was the team’s leading rusher (which says more about the rest of the running game than Maye) with 38 yards on five carries. Three of his scrambles went for first downs, and he was mostly only bolting from the pocket when he knew he had a chance to move the chains.

We’ve heard that Maye had a bad offensive line at UNC last season, too. But how did he handle that? And how can the Pats best weaponize his athleticism?

Lastly, we heard a few people compare Maye to Josh Allen during the pre-draft process. Is there anything to the Pats potentially using Maye’s running ability the way the Bills do with Allen, or is that overstating what Maye can do?

Nick: I’ll start with the good part first, and that’s the Josh Allen comp. In many ways, yes, Maye is a lighter, perhaps a bit less explosive (Allen’s jump numbers were insane) version of Allen. He’s a 6-foot-4, 230-pound quarterback who will probably actually get stronger (he just turned 22). Much like Washington with Jayden Daniels right now, New England will need to be careful with how much Maye is allowed to run — as tempting as it is. But he shouldn’t be discouraged from it, as his speed (he’s probably faster than Allen) is good enough and his body can handle a lot of it.

Now, all that said, he ran too much against Houston. Just because you’re a capable runner doesn’t mean it’s going to work every time you think you feel an ounce of pressure. Too often, especially early in the game, Maye was bailing out of mostly clean pockets rather than stepping up and reading his progression through the end of the concept. If no one’s open, by all means, run. But when Maye’s feet are off rhythm when he comes out of his drop and no one is open because the routes aren’t ready, that’s really not an excuse to scramble. That’s a sign his feet need to improve. These are things he got away with at North Carolina and were part of the critiques I recall hearing from Bill Belichick in the pre-draft process. You can’t get away with being a one- or two-reads-and-out quarterback at this level. He also has work to do when it comes to feeling the rush in the pocket.

I’ll be curious to see if New England builds a few QB runs into game plans over the next few weeks, as Washington has done for Daniels. Maye’s the kind of quarterback who seems to love contact far too much, and there were times at UNC when you’d see him run over a guy, gain confidence and go on a bit of a tear. He’s not as lethal as Daniels, but it’s part of his game.

Chad: All right, time to get to some of Maye’s struggles. He was part of the reason the Patriots were 3-of-13 on third downs. He threw two interceptions, the first of which was really bad. He overthrew Demario Douglas (who, in his defense, is 5-foot-8) multiple times.

We know the team around Maye isn’t good. Besides the offensive line, the wide receivers are struggling, too. Second-round pick Ja’Lynn Polk is clearly in a funk and having issues with drops and run blocking, Jerod Mayo said. K.J. Osborn hasn’t provided anything after the team added him in free agency and hoped he might be its top receiver.

All of that is true. And yet it still looked like Maye had some issues missing targets Sunday.

We’ve heard and talked a lot in New England about Maye’s footwork. What did you see from him in that department? And were those misfires in Sunday’s game just part of life with a rookie quarterback?

Nick: For me, anyone who questioned the team’s intention to sit Maye to start the year saw why that was a fair plan during the first half of Sunday’s game. In fact, one of his first throws of the game featured something we saw way too much of at North Carolina.

Watch when he lands the last step in his drop. Rather than squaring up, pointing that front foot at his target and stepping into a throw with his whole body, Maye instead drops the front foot out and toward the sideline before starting to sort of fade away into nowhere. There’s no pressure here, it’s blocked fine. But the initial rhythm of his drop was off. To me, this play looks like it required a five-step drop (with or without a hitch), and Maye shortened it to four with a weird sidestep. The route’s not ready when Maye’s body is loaded after he lands on four. And, because he had to freelance extra steps, Maye’s throw is late. He knew it, tried to overcompensate and sailed it.

That’s football. If you’re too early, you’re late. It has to be on time and in rhythm. Maye was a two-year starter in a college-y offense (RPOs, zone reads) and he basically got away with bad feet his entire sophomore year. It improved last season, but he was also just a junior. Additionally, Maye’s senior year of high school was canceled due to COVID. He’s a 22-year-old who has started two full seasons — in a non-NFL offense — over the past four years of his life.

However, as Jim Harbaugh always says, you only get better at football by playing football. It’s great that Maye has earned Mayo’s trust enough to be the guy right now, and you hope the fans understand it’ll be a process this year.

(Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)