How Maye looks like a ‘completely different’ QB since training camp

How Maye looks like a ‘completely different’ QB since training camp originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

FOXBORO — To play him or not to play him? That was the question that dominated the summer and early portion of fall for Patriots followers.

Play Drake Maye to start the season, and you might risk him taking unnecessary punishment behind a patchwork offensive line. You also might subject his confidence to a certain level of rattling if his footwork and pre-snap diagnostic capabilities weren’t NFL-ready.

Don’t play him, and you may be missing out. The team may wonder why. And the product may be less watchable.

The Patriots chose the latter, believing they had a better chance to develop their young passer behind the scenes. And while his ascension into the starting lineup may have happened more quickly than the team’s brass had envisioned, they would still tell you that he did in fact become a player while watching.

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Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt said Maye, 22, was “completely different” than he was back in Week 1 because of some of the things he’s learned since then.

“We had a period yesterday, a start-fast period, against our defense, good on good in the red zone,” Van Pelt explained on Thursday. “I didn’t give him an answer for a zero blitz look that the defense presented, and he got himself out of trouble with the right protection adjustment and the right change and threw a touchdown.

“For me (it was), ‘Wow. OK he can get in there and protect himself. He knows the calls he needs to make.’ I don’t know if we would’ve gotten that done in Week 1.”

Veteran wideout Kendrick Bourne took note of that practice moment, too.

“It’s exciting,” Bourne said. “He has to operate different than we do at receiver. We don’t have to worry about any of that. We have to know our check, our adjustment. But his job is to see it all. He has to see the full picture. To be able to do that at a young age is definitely impressive. He gives us the best chance to get us into the end zone.

“If he can locate where the blitz is coming from, it just helps him make the right decision. And then if the play breaks down, his ability kicks in, too. It’s impressive that he can do that, and then if it doesn’t play out clear (on time), then he can get out and scramble, use his legs, use his talent, and that’s how that play worked out yesterday.”

While Maye’s blitz work is already impressing both in practice and game situations — he had a rating of 92.1 against the blitz against the Texans last week — Maye explained on Wednesday that his time as Brissett’s backup helped him understand a different element of his pre-snap process to a greater degree.

“I think the biggest thing is kind of the run checks and the different looks that get us in the best run,” Maye said when asked what he can do now that he wouldn’t have been able to in August. “I think that’s the biggest thing. Watching Jacoby [Brissett] do it, watching how he does it, and bringing in guys that block the right guys. I feel like that’s kind of the thing that I didn’t really look at until I look at the film.

“I feel like in the run game, I did mostly everything that got asked and the right execution. I think that was the biggest kind of sigh of relief of seeing all the different run looks under center, seeing it, and getting the guys blocked up. Just got to continue to do that.”

There’s also a preparation piece that Maye was able to absorb during his time as the team’s No. 2. Van Pelt believes that period of understudy work has helped allow Maye to develop into his starting role as a de facto leader.

“Very natural. Natural leader. Great studier,” Van Pelt said of Maye. “Very intelligent guy that can ask great questions in the meeting rooms. He’s everything you want in a young quarterback.

“Again, after sitting and watching the preparation of Jacoby for the first five weeks was a big part of that, seeing how the quarterback room operates at the pro level, questions that need to be asked throughout the week, I think that just helped build up his inventory of how to go through meetings and ask the questions that he needs to get answered.

“Very impressive with his approach. He studies hard at night, you can tell that. When you call a new play in a Wednesday practice, he’s already digested the verbiage and can spit it out easily so I know he’s putting the work in. You get texts throughout the course of the evening, ‘When there’s this look do I do this? What do I need to do in this look?’ So I know he’s putting the time in.”

Of course, that time is well spent now, with the team’s hopes pinned to Maye’s weekly performance. But it turns out, according to those who’ve been around him, the time he put in as a backup paid real dividends as well.