Hear me out: I’m more optimistic about the Patriots’ quarterback situation with Drake Maye than the Jets’ future with Aaron Rodgers.
That’s right. I’d rather be the stinky two-win Patriots, who lost Maye to a concussion in the second quarter in another 1 o'clock game, than the stinky two-win Jets who have a nearly 41-year-old hall-of-famer under center.
I'd feel the same way if the officials had overturned Rhamondre Stevenson's final touchdown and the Patriots continued the season as a one-win team.
The Rodgers experiment hasn't been worth it for New York, and Maye is the only thing New England has gotten right since Bill Belichick was shown the door.
The two franchises who faced off on Sunday couldn’t have entered the season in more different scenarios, and yet, they both sit at, or near, the bottom of the conference. The Jets are paying Rodgers $38.1 million in cash this season and just lost to a team who's in the wee stages of a rebuild. They’ve already fired their coach and made a desperation play bringing in Davante Adams from the Raiders.
The Jets mortgaged their future on the ayahuasca enthusiast and lost to a bottom-two team in the league. So, alright, Rodgers is still a top-end quarterback. Nobody can take away his four MVPs or his Super Bowl. Let’s not forget the Patriots’ Thursday Night Football disaster in the Meadowlands earlier this year. But he’s not a culture changer like Tom Brady was in Tampa. The Jets aren’t a losing team because they lack talent, like the Patriots. It’s because Rodgers looks like a hired hand, not the face of the franchise.
Rodgers didn’t make the Jets the 2010 Packers; he went to New York and became a Jet.
This argument is not to let New England off the hook for the $36.6 million they still have to spend against the salary cap. It sure would be nice to have more depth on defense and higher end talent surrounding Maye.
I’m saying that as bleak as things have been in Foxboro, there’s hope behind Maye. That’s never been clearer this season than when the rookie went to the locker room with a concussion following what appeared to be a helmet-to-helmet hit from New York’s Jamien Sherwood. All the air went out of Gillette Stadium for the remainder of the first half. Before the injury, Maye looked like the superior quarterback and elevated all of the talent around him, from the tight ends to Rhamondre Stevenson. He led the team in rushing with 46 yards until the final two minutes of the game, and he went down in the second quarter. Credit to the team for rallying behind Jacoby Brissett and upsetting the Jets for a much-needed win, but the season is still about Maye.
This argument also isn’t even about the much-ballyhooed rookie contract window. Again, New England should spend a lot more to support Maye, and they should get in the habit of doing so regardless of the quarterback’s paycheck.
In just 2.3 games, Maye has shown himself to be a dynamic player, a collected professional, and a tough kid. He is a walking personification of the Rudyard Kipling poem “If.” He just needs to add protecting himself as a runner to the list of areas for improvement compiled and carried by every rookie quarterback.
Maye hasn't won a game for the Patriots yet, and there’s not much much else right with the current roster. But New England fans can take solace in the idea that after this season, there could be brighter days on the horizon with their young quarterback. Meanwhile, Rodgers brought the Jets on another one of his darkness retreats.