After a day off, the Patriots were back at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday to continue their preparations for their Week 4 game against the San Francisco 49ers (1-2).
Conversation around the quarterback position in New England has continued to percolate in the wake of Jacoby Brissett’s performance in Week 3, where the nine-year veteran was hit all game long by the Jets defense in a 24-3 loss on Thursday Night Football.
Brissett had no time to throw, and was sacked five times on the night. And quite frankly, New England was lucky that number wasn’t much higher given the amount of pressure Brissett was under.
It was more of the same for rookie Drake Maye when he entered the ballgame for the final series, as he was sacked twice and was under constant pressure during his eight pass attempts.
With the offensive line playing as poorly as it has, it’s only natural to wonder how secure the Patriots are in their backup QB position - especially with the rookie Maye at number two on the depth chart.
If the team won’t start their number three overall pick because of their emphasis on his “development plan” behind Brissett, are we positive that he’d get the nod if needed?
If the answer to that question is “no,” that means bringing a veteran backup quarterback would be in the cards for New England.
When asked about this hypothetical on Wednesday, Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo shot the idea down.
“That's not in our plans at this current time.” said Mayo when asked if he saw any merit in adding a veteran quarterback.
Later on, a follow-up question was asked of Mayo on this topic, wondering if what Maye has shown at practice during his work with the first unit has led Mayo to having this comfortability with the current QB room.
He said he would agree with that assertion.
“He's looked good in practice, but once again, it's just practice,” said Mayo. “You want to get a guy like that, obviously, on the football field, but at this current time – I don't want to go back to that answer – but at this current time, we're just not looking to add any pieces at that spot.”
Mayo went on to say that Maye is still getting about 30% of the first team reps at practice - a much higher percentage than the typical backup quarterback around the league - but wanted to make sure he mentioned the work Maye is getting outside of that 30%.
“Let me just go back just to provide clarification,” said Mayo. “It's 70-30 with the ones. Drake's getting a ton of reps on the show team, and he's approached that process the right way.
“He doesn't want to know what the defense is doing. He doesn't want to know the coverage. He's going out there, going through his reads, and we talk about that all the time. Just because you're on the show team doesn't mean you can't work on your fundamentals and your progressions, and he's done a good job of that.”
Outside of the two sacks on Thursday night, Maye was 4 for 8 for 22 yards, to go along with 2 rushes for 12 yards. He helped the offense move the ball 46 yards on 16 plays over four and a half minutes to close out the game. Maye was able to get the ball all the way to the Jets 7-yard line, which was New England’s first and only time in the red zone all game long.
Of course, this was all garbage time action. But in a game filled with some of the worst football we’ve seen this franchise play in a long time against a team they’ve dominated this century, a drive like this one is going to be notable.
A faction of fans are not only wondering what this season would look like through three games had Maye been the starter from day one, but they’re also wondering what things will look like moving forward with a new, exciting play caller.
If Brissett is unable to remain healthy behind the Patriots’ sieve of an offensive line, New England fans might be getting an answer to the latter question sooner rather than later.