On Thursday night, rookie Drake Maye outplayed presumptive starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett in a 14-13 loss to the Eagles at Gillette Stadium in the team’s second preseason game of the year.
And on Friday morning, when head coach Jerod Mayo was asked if he views the quarterback situation as a true competition for the starting job Week 1 in Cincinnati, he said, “I do.”
“You know, we have three more days of training camp practices, and it’s our job as coaches to evaluate, and the competition isn’t over,” said Mayo via Webex. “They’re still gonna go out there, and they have to show not only, you know, themselves and their coaches, but their teammates. So it’s definitely still a competition.”
Mayo went on to say that for Maye to outright win the job for Week 1, the entire operation needs to function “faster.”
“I think first and foremost is just the entire operation - I think it needs to be faster,” said Mayo. “I think he needs to get those guys in the huddle faster, get them out of the huddle faster, and get to the line and just be on point.
“I think that’s definitely a thing he has to work on, and I think he is. And like I said, we have three more days of camp, and that’s going to be my point of emphasis for him.”
Those points of emphasis are not surprising to hear from Mayo, as Maye told the media last night that “other than getting in a huddle and using a cadence,” most of his game from college translates to the professional level.
With three training camp practices to go, and with Mayo’s quarterback competition proclamation, logic would tell you that Maye will see a lot more first team reps over the next week heading into the team’s next preseason game against the Washington Commanders.
When asked about how those reps would break down, Mayo said, “We’ll see. You know, we’ll have a staff meeting later on today, and that decision will be made. I do think, you know, he definitely showed improvement yesterday as a whole, and we’ll see what happens going forward.
“This has just been the plan that we put together. And, you know, you have to adjust those plans based on the competition. But that definitely is the development plan for Drake.”
Things just got a lot more interesting at 1 Patriot Place, folks.
The Patriots get back to the practice field on Saturday afternoon for their first practice not open to the public this training camp season.