Starting Jacoby Brissett over Drake Maye shows Patriots' commitment to plan, and extra caution

Jacoby Brissett was always Plan A.

Patriots fans wowed by rookie Drake Maye’s athleticism and performance behind a preseason offensive line that looked downright moth eaten may be disappointed, but the decision to start the veteran Brissett should come as no surprise.

The Patriots’ plan for quarterback started well before they drafted Maye, in free agency. They spent mid-March signing Brissett, an affable pro and known commodity in Foxborough. They re-signed Michael Onwenu, who vacillated between guard and tackle at the end of 2023, for real money: three years at $57 million.

Then they went to the tackle shop and found the shelves almost bare.

If Eliot Wolf and Jerod Mayo were intent to start 2024 with a rookie under center, they could have battled the Cardinals to sign former Bengals tackle Jonah Williams. They had the cash and cap space. Williams is far from a lock at tackle, but he’s an experienced starter. He went to the Cardinals for two years, $30 million.

There were other free agent big boys the Patriots could have gotten for much less. Yosh Nijman went to Carolina for two years, $8 million, (and he was once reportedly dubbed “the world’s biggest robot” by Aaron Rodgers, for performing the dance during a Packers game. Unclear whether this name will carry down to the Panthers).

None of the tackle options were perfect. A lot of them could be easily framed as bad multi-year investments from a team spending standpoint.

And that’s the key here: the balance between the present and the future, which has been the biggest factor in the quarterback “competition” this entire year.

“The hard part is thinking in the short term and the long term at the same time,” Mayo said in a brief press conference. “As an organization, though, we feel like Jacoby gives us the best chance to win right now.”

The latter part of Mayo’s statement is probably more indicative of a public vote of confidence in Brissett rather than a realistic evaluation of the two guys’ skills. Remember, Mayo said just days before that Maye had recently outplayed Brissett.

But the first part says everything about the Patriots’ mindset this year: “DO NOT RISK THE FUTURE FOR THE BENEFIT OF NOW.”

The stripped-down version of this argument is that putting Maye behind the league’s worst offensive line could lead to injury, stunt his development, and/or wreck his mentality.

All of those hypotheticals are very possible, and this is an organization that’s highly sensitive to the needs of a rookie quarterback after have just gone through the Mac Jones disaster.

But the second piece of the plan came into focus with Maye’s draft. He’s a 21-year-old who played 30 games in the ACC. He’s proven himself to be as athletic as advertised, but also, a fast learner who kept a cool head through crazy preseason scenarios.

In the third preseason game, he lost a shoe and completed a pass in his mid-calf sock. That’s composure.

And yet, to start Maye now would be a major deviation from the Patriots’ plan. And what did everyone knock Bill Belichick for since Tom Brady walked out the door? Well…drafts. But also this: WHAT WAS THE PLAAAAAAN??? What was the plan when Brady left? What was the plan when Josh McDaniels left? What was the plan when benching Jones, over and over again?

In starting Brissett, Mayo and his staff are committing to a plan they started in the spring, by not spending on tackles. They drafted a young, high-ceiling quarterback with a lot to learn. Then they barely gave him reps with the 1’s in training camp, even when he earned that chance.

Any quarterback "competition" had to be the struggle between Maye's accelerated development and the development methods the staff had for him.

Regarding the team, Mayo has said time and time again, it’s about the “full body of work” these quarterbacks have shown. Brissett has a body of work the size of a Harry Potter book. Maye’s, in comparison, has the heft of a grocery market circular.

So now it’s on Maye and Ben McAdoo to continue the rookie’s impressive trajectory behind the scenes. Mayo hasn’t laid out a schedule for his rookie’s debut. He’ll have to wow his coaches on scout team, to prove himself ready to commit the entire organization to the next step.

For a franchise showing themselves to be extra cautious, that step will be a giant leap.