FOXBORO, Mass. — Drake Maye unbuckled his chin strap and stared off into the distance as the Tennessee Titans flooded the field to celebrate their 20-17 overtime win over the New England Patriots on Sunday. The victory was sealed by the quarterback’s second interception of the day.
Maye, a 22-year-old rookie making just his fourth NFL start, was asked to be everything for his team against a bad opponent. They’d just come up short after forcing overtime on one of the most exciting plays of the season. In overtime, he’d taken a deep shot to arguably the best receiver of a bad bunch, and it got picked off, an abrupt end to a strange game.
Drake Maye goes deep… PICKED by the Amani Hooker!
Hooker’s 2nd INT of the game seals the @titans win! pic.twitter.com/Nb3fZz7ksW
— NFL (@NFL) November 3, 2024
It left the Patriots unable to avoid the obvious. They are 2-7, tied for the worst record in the league. In the last three weeks, they’ve lost to two of the teams they’re tied with (the Titans and the Jacksonville Jaguars). In a lot of ways, they are still searching for answers in this rebuild.
Yet after the latest loss, as Maye completed 29 of 41 passes for 206 yards and a touchdown while also running for 95 yards, it’s easy to feel conflicted.
The Patriots are asking Maye to carry the entire offense. That he even occasionally makes that work is impressive and a testament to what he can be for this franchise at the sport’s most important position.
But it’s also a massive problem. The Patriots are asking him to put the offense on his back while giving him no help. The offensive line can’t block, the receivers struggle to get open and the running game has gotten so bad that the Patriots abandoned it. Yet Maye still dragged this team to the edge of an upset.
GO DEEPER
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If you’re only interested in hearing the positive, focus on that. Everything so far suggests the Patriots hit on the No. 3 pick. They got their quarterback, the most important part of a rebuild, and everything long term looks a lot rosier when you think about how good he could be with better players around him.
But at the same time, it’s pretty damning that the Patriots’ situation is so bad that it’s hard to tell whether it’s the scheme, play calling or talent that’s most responsible for holding back this offense. The kid looks promising, but what if it takes the team so long to fix what’s around him that it damages his confidence and his play suffers?
“I think sometimes, as well as he has played, sometimes you forget how young he is,” coach Jerod Mayo said.
Let’s start with the run game. The Patriots had just 12 designed runs Sunday. They went for a total of 15 yards. It was so bad that they entirely gave up on running, calling 16 straight passing plays to end the game — which, no coincidence, was when they moved the ball most successfully.
Rhamondre Stevenson managed only 16 yards on 10 carries (though one was a touchdown) and was unwilling to offer much on how to fix the offense.
“Just let the coaching staff handle it,” he said.
GO DEEPER
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That’s already putting a lot on the plate of a rookie quarterback when the entire stadium knows he’s going to pass. (Again, it was probably the right decision to ditch the running game given the way it was going. It’s just asking a lot of a young quarterback.)
Then there’s the play calling and scheme. Whether it’s the lack of talent or the way coordinator Alex Van Pelt is calling plays, the offense constantly feels stuck in the mud. Maye’s completions seem to come either by threading tight windows or hitting receivers near the line of scrimmage, which was the case Sunday since the offensive line struggled to block for very long. That’s a tough way to build an explosive offense.
The end-of-half play calling hasn’t helped the quarterback either. The latest example in a season full of mistakes came at the end of the first half when the Patriots, after several productive completions, chose to run it on second-and-1 and third-and-1, taking the ball out of Maye’s hands when the entire playbook should’ve been open. It was a golden opportunity to take a shot downfield.
At this point, it feels like the offense is just, “Let’s hope Drake does something crazy.” He often did Sunday. His 95 rushing yards on eight scrambles was the highest total by a Patriots quarterback since Steve Grogan’s 103 in 1976. In a lot of ways, he was the entire offense.
“The guy is special, man,” tight end Hunter Henry said.
That’s why the Patriots are in a weird place where two things can be true: that Maye’s future appears to be very bright, but also that the Patriots aren’t doing him any favors in an offense that asks him to do way too much.
In fairness, when the offense pulls off an explosive play, it’s often because Maye did too much. His scintillating, last-second touchdown pass to Stevenson is a perfect example. His scrambles and underhand flip to Stevenson come to mind, too.
DRAKE MAYE MAGICCCCCCCCC!!!!!!!!!
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/UvIB3dRi8k
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 3, 2024
But he’s still just 22, only a month into his tenure as an NFL starter. So it’s fair to expect some mistakes in those situations, too, like when he forced the deep ball to Kayshon Boutte that ended the game or when he tried to extend the play in the fourth quarter that led to the strip-sack, the turnover that resulted in the Titans’ go-ahead touchdown.
“Just a dumb decision,” Maye said of the game-ending interception. “Especially in that situation.”
Maye can handle a lot of pressure. He wouldn’t have been the No. 3 pick in the draft if he couldn’t. But the toll on Maye will add up if the team keeps putting everything on his shoulders.
It already seems to be having an effect. He looked gassed after the incredible scramble and last-second touchdown pass to Stevenson that involved him running around and buying time for 11.82 seconds. That seemed to be why the Patriots didn’t go for two and try to win the game at the end of regulation.
“I don’t want to get into that,” Mayo said of whether potential exhaustion after that long play figured into the decision. “It’s a good question. I just don’t want to get into it now.”
Maye shouldered all of the blame for his team’s offensive woes — even though anyone who watched it knew it wasn’t his fault. Scratches and bruises were on his arms, scars from another game in which he had to do everything. His play so far offers excitement about what he can one day look like with a more talented team around him.
On Sunday, the Patriots asked him to be a one-man offense. Again, Maye looked impressive, but that approach doesn’t feel like a recipe for sustained success in New England.
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(Photo: Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Images)
