Bedard: Where do the Patriots go after the Eagles practice debacle?

So, we have a little distance from the carnage that was the Patriots' offense against the Eagles, as we prepare for tonight's preseason tilt between the two teams.

No, I haven't had any second thoughts on my initial impressions. It was that bad. Things started OK, but quickly went downhill. The Patriots were completely inept, especially on the offensive line, by the end.

I did go back and check my notes from the Raiders in practice in 2022 where I left with a similar feeling. Tuesday was not as bad as that.

Jerod Mayo said yesterday's session was a litmus test for the team.

"To have the Eagles come in, a great organization, a great team, it’s definitely going to be a good measuring stick for us," he said before the session.

For things to go the way they did — and let us point out, the defense showed well on the other field — was a bit stunning. It was the type of practice that left you reeling a bit and questioning everything about how they got to this point. 

Let's go through those questions — on Drake Maye, the offensive line and how they got here — and some of the possible solutions (if there are any):

1. Did the Patriots miss-evaluate Drake Maye and how far away he is?

This is impossible to answer because we'll never know the internal discussions. Most of the pre-draft evaluations of Maye, from people that I respect and my own determination, was Maye was going to be a project and needed to be rebuilt, basically from scratch. The discussion internally should have been about how long that would take. In my opinion, you don't take Maye third overall if he's not ready to start and win games in 2025. I'm fine waiting that long, even with the third pick. If you think he's going to be the guy, you have to take him. Hopefully you'll never be in that draft position again.

That seems to be the evaluation the Patriots made. It seems the Giants and Brian Daboll made the same evaluation given their lust for trading up. The Giants have Daniel Jones for at least one more season. Feels like Daboll was eyeing getting a talent like Maye, training him up for a year, and then going with him.

So the Patriots were not alone in their evaluation.

There's no question Maye has been held back by backup offensive line that he's working with, but he has factored in the issues as well with his indecisiveness. It's very clear that his processing speed has struggled to this point. Does that mean that he's a bust? Absolutely not. Again, if he develops over the next year and looks different next camp (hopefully by the end of his season), it's all good. That can still happen. Absolutely.

But I'm very surprised he's still at this point. The way they have used him, the decision to never give him snaps with the starting offensive line even in practice points to me that he is not ready for that. Is it possible they are just going with Jacoby Brissett in those situations to get him ready for the season, and use his knowledge of the system to help the starting offense along? Possibly. But if Maye was breezing through every checkpoint, do you really think they wouldn't give him a few looks out there? Of course they would.

When a coach's podium remarks match up with their actions, believe them. Mayo said this after the Panthers game about Maye getting time with the starting line:

"When he’s ready to go, we’ll put him there."

Mayo is telling you Maye is not ready to go.

Obviously he's behind. He's been with the Patriots since May. A player that talented should have mixed in with the 1s at this point. If the Patriots had the benefit of hindsight, would they have taken the Giants and Vikings trade-back offers? Giants offered 6 and their 2025 first-round pick. The Vikings offered the Nos. 11 and 23 picks, and its 2025 first-rounder.

The Vikings deal could have yielded QB JJ McCarthy and WR Brian Thomas or OT Jordan Morgan or OT Tyler Guyton. Plus the Patriots would have two first-round picks in 2025.

Very tempting.

Again, it all depends on where Maye is in four months, and 12 months. A slow start is not overly alarming, but the evaluation was either right or wrong, and the franchise's future is in the balance.

I do wonder if the Patriots did a disservice to Maye not coming out and declaring, "He is sitting as a rookie. He needs a year to learn." If he exceeds expectations, you can always change the plan and that would be exciting.

Right after the Chiefs drafted Patrick Mahomes, this is what Andy Reid said:

"Patrick is not absolutely ready to play, he's got some work to do, but he's coming into a great room. He gets an opportunity to learn from Alex Smith, which will be a phenomenal experience for him and learn the offense. And so we have to be patient with him. Definitely not a finished product right now, but he has tremendous upside, and we think he'll fit into this offense very well. He's a good person, he's intelligent, he's got great skill, and I just think it'll be a great Kansas City Chief when it's all said and done.

"We just think his upside it's a clean canvas, something to really work on and work with. Obviously, it's a different scheme. You won't see that coordination with his feet and his drop according to pass route that's called. So he's got to do that. We'll ask him to go under center. He's been working on that for the last couple months, and, this is with every young quarterback, getting to know the coverages per your routes that you're going to ask him to deal with per the drop that's asked to make that throw against those coverages. So it takes a little bit of time to get all that down, and really he's not coming from a system that did that too much.

"There are a lot of guys out there that can just chuck it, you know, you've got to have the accuracy part of it. You have to have a feel, vision is a huge thing that you look at. And we thought he kind of had that. And does he need to refine it? Yeah, he's got to refine it. So we got to get that part taken care of. But that's what you do as a coach, right? You're supposed to take these guys and teach them. And so we're going to start doing that when we have an opportunity to."

If the Patriots said those things at the start, would there be that much frustration where Maye is?

2. What are the options on the offensive line?

The line was so bad across the board against a very good Eagles front (even Mike Onwenu and Sidy Sow had issues) that the coaching and front office staff should have gone into a meeting in the last 24 hours and said, "OK, we need to figure this shit out. This is not good enough."

What are the options?

The tackles have been a huge issue, starting with Calvin Anderson, Vederian Lowe and Chuks Okorafor (to a lesser extent, he was dealing with an injury and was unfairly thrust into the Panthers game with no practice time).

Were there other options? No really. Sorry, Tyron Smith was not coming here and you shouldn't have wanted the oft-injured former star. Jonah Williams signed a two-year, $30 million contract with the Cardinals ($21.5 million is guaranteed of which $19 million is fully guaranteed at signing). He is due to start at right tackle for the Cardinals. You could make the argument that Okorafor was better than Williams last year at a fraction of the cost (PFF grades: 62.4 for Okorafor, 58.5 for Williams; pass-blocking efficiency: 97.5 for Chuks, 96.5 for Williams). 

But that's over with. Now, you have to figure out what works.

David Andrews does, although I haven't loved how he's taken a few team periods off (including against the Eagles) recently because it forces Maye to play with Atonio Mafi at center. But that may be an injury consideration. 

Owenu does, at right guard or right tackle.

Sow, who has tailed off a little of late, is passable at left guard. And from what I hear, Cole Strange is a long ways off (would be nice to a have a first-round guard out there, no?)

That's about it. It's time to quit screwing around, even if it's too late for Thursday. If the Eagles game goes the way practice did, the Patriots need to start anew on the line:

Onwenu needs to move to right tackle.
Layden Robinson, who has had a great couple of weeks, should get a shot at right guard.
Andrews and Sow stay where they are.
Caeden Wallace and Okorafor should battle it out for left tackle.

As to players available on the street, the Patriots have not yet checked in on Donovan Smith. I don't know about David Bakhtiari. Those are the only two with a shot to hold down left tackle, but they have issues. Smith gets penalized a ton. Bakhtiari can't stay on the field.

3. How did they get here?

You can definitely take issue with the promotion of Jerod Mayo when someone like Mike Vrabel was a free agent. But, at the very least, the Krafts should have told Mayo that he has a blank checkbook to hire the best offensive coordinator he could find, and his understudy. That would have been nice, but they didn't do that. Or at least it didn't appear they did that.

Look, the bottom line is the Patriots are woefully undertalented on the offensive line and defensive line interior due to decision made by Bill Belichick, and you can't get out of that in one offseason - no matter how much you want them spend like it's fantasy football. That's just not reality. Rebuilding like that never, ever works in football.

Watching the Eagles really brought that home.

One team has put a ton of resources into the OL and DL the past five years, and that team was not the Patriots. 

The top five defensive tackles for the Eagles were all draft picks over the past three years. Of the top three pass rushers, two are homegrown. One (Bryce Huff) was a free agent. The offensive line was all drafted by the Eagles outside Mekhi Becton, who was a first-rounder.

The Eagles have an identity and culture. The Patriots are trying to rebuild one, and that does not happen overnight.