The Catch-22 of Drake Maye's leadership challenge

Indulge me here with a trip down memory lane, back to the first episode of ‘Game of Thrones,’ (I promise, no spoilers for those who haven’t watched):

Good guy and accomplished war hero Ned Stark and his son, Rob, are out riding.

Rob asks Ned, “How can a man be brave if he’s afraid?”

“That is the only time a man can be brave,” Ned answers.

It’s a nice Catch-22 about how courage isn’t living without fear, but overcoming it. In a strange way, it gets me thinking about the expectations of young Drake Maye as a leader – he’s only been asked about his leadership some dozen times through 2025, and head coach Mike Vrabel isn’t shy about his expectations.

“Sometimes the performance isn’t going to be extraordinary, but the leadership and the demeanor has to be. And I think he’s learning that,” Vrabel told the ‘Greg Hill Show’ on Monday. “I love the fact that he’s willing to learn and push and try to do those things to where he’s demanding of everybody and making sure that everybody’s on the same page.”

The question to me is, can a young quarterback become a great leader if his team doesn’t win? Is it enough to manage his own business day by day, say the right things, not be a dink, and follow the coach’s blueprint? And hope doing the right things will lead to the right plays?

It seems to me that, like the way one can only be brave when they’re afraid, one can only lead in the face of a real challenge. The quarterback – the position who exerts the most influence over a football game – has to elevate everyone (including himself) above their own circumstances - i.e., he can only be a leader when he helps his team overcome their own limitations, lest he be marked by pundits as a “championship passenger.”

Any fan in New England would be happy to have a “system quarterback” if that system took the Patriots back to the Super Bowl. But Maye is certainly not that, he’s got skills that push him way above game management, which raise his expectations. He was the silver lining to last year’s dismal season. We were all content to give him a bit of a pass – the situation in which he landed was that bad.

It doesn’t look like that’s the case this year. Credit the Krafts. They hired a head coach who practices what he preaches. They spent in free agency.

Now it’s on Maye to quickly mature his game. He seems to have a natural report with his teammates, and he doesn’t carry the self-consciousness of Mac Jones as young quarterback. But he also doesn’t come off as an egomaniac. This comment caught my ear after the Patriots’ joint practice with the Minnesota Vikings:

“I think us guys on offense, the big veterans, in Mike Onwenu and Morgan [Moses] and Hunter [Henry] and Mondre [Rhamondre Stevenson] and those guys and Stef Diggs are going to challenge ourselves to – and Garrett Bradbury in there – push ourselves to lead,” Maye said. “I think it starts with me building those guys, and then from there I think guys can kind of bounce off and I really tell those guys to push me. Once I feel like they're pushing me, I feel like I can give back.”

Here’s the other point of spending in free agency: there are a lot of new, experienced veterans on offense. In NFL years, Maye is still a puppy – albeit it one in that lanky-legged, big paws phase. How does he do what his coaches ask and keep others accountable with less experience under his belt?

A huge amount of that balance just has to come from on-field performance. Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels’ won over his 2024 injection of veteran free agents with a four-game win streak early in the season.

Look, Maye doesn’t have to connect with Diggs for a Hail Mary victory this October, but he has to be more of the guy we’ve seen in training camp than the guy in his first drive against Washington in last week’s preseason game. It may sound like overkill to hammer the guy for that boneheaded fumble, but his judgement has to be better. He simply can’t repeat mistakes that come from lack of composure and experience. Otherwise, he treads down a Jameis Winston-ian path, (full of media and teammate adoration, but not wins - even after Lasik eye surgery!).

For the bulk of this preseason, Maye has been really great. His off-throws and bad decisions have been few and far between. He can only continue to walk that walk and then talk the talk as he gets more experience. Leadership can’t just bloom overnight. In his case, he has to earn the trust of his team through his performance day-by-day in training camp, and then week-by-week as the season gets underway, and he can’t be a lunkhead. It’s not just about winning games. It’s about his development as the face of this franchise and an NFL quarterback. But that comes through winning games, right? See the Catch-22?

Hopefully, by the time winter comes, the ending to his season is better than that of those Starks, (still, no spoilers!)