You will be hard pressed to find anyone in New England satisfied with the performance of second-year quarterback Drake Maye on Sunday, whose uneven effort under center was most responsible for the Patriots’ 20-13 loss to the Raiders in Week 1.
Maye was 30 of 46 for 287 yards with a touchdown and an interception to his name. And for a player who we saw make plenty of plays with his legs last season, Maye was held to just 11 yards rushing on only 4 attempts.
Armed with a new OC in Josh McDaniels and a new No. 1 receiver in Stefon Diggs, the expectations for Maye’s 2025 debut were much higher than what we saw on Sunday. And to be quite honest, those numbers actually look better on paper than they did in person, as a good chunk of those 287 passing yards came in garbage time late in the fourth quarter.
When asked about Maye’s Week 1 performance on Monday, head coach Mike Vrabel told The Greg Hill Show that a change in mindset would benefit the 23-year-old QB.
“I think that he wants to be, at times, perfect, and [we] need to get past that,” Vrabel said on WEEI. “We all have to get past that. You need to be precise, not perfect.
“If you make a mistake, it's the reaction that you have to the mistake that everybody sees. And then they're like, ‘Oh wow, that was a mistake.’ We have to clean our reactions up. Our responses have to be much better. And then getting into the flow, because you see really good timing and precision and accuracy, and then we see some other misses.
“I just want the better performance [to be] more consistent, and continue to grow as a leader and make sure that there is a command to what we're doing - this is the situation, this is the play. Those are the things that I'm focused on.”
Despite Maye and the offense being shut out of the end zone after the first quarter, Vrabel thought there were parts of his QB’s game to like on Sunday after watching the tape.
“I thought he was bumped a little bit,” said Vrabel. “We've got to get into these routes and get spacing. And then, obviously, if the quarterback gets hit, bad things happen, right? Turnovers happen, or they get hurt eventually. That’s kind of what I've always said with quarterback hits.
“So I thought he had some really good decisions. I thought he was accurate at times, and then I thought there were some misses. That's how it goes. I thought we protected, for the most part, fairly well. It was never perfect, never will be. But I thought there were some clean pockets against a few really good pass rushers.”
We’ll see if Maye and the offense can bounce back in Week 2, as they hit the road for a divisional showdown with the Dolphins (0-1).
Miami is coming off an unimpressive showing of their own, getting spanked by the Colts on Sunday 33-8.
With that said, the Patriots have not beaten the Dolphins since Week 17 of the 2022 season. Regardless of how Miami looked in Week 1, this Week 2 matchup is no gimme.
As of publishing, New England is a 1.5-point road dog at FanDuel. You can get the Patriots on the moneyline at +108, and the total is set at 43.5.
Tune in each and every Monday throughout the football season to Patriots Monday on WEEI. Head coach Mike Vrabel joins The Greg Hill Show at 6:30 a.m. ET, and quarterback Drake Maye joins WEEI Afternoons.