In the end, the decision to start Jacoby Brissett at quarterback was a no-brainer. And for all the talk about competition, Drake Maye "outplaying" Brissett and the like, this was probably a pre-ordained decision by the organization from the moment Maye was taken third overall.
If you truly had designs on Maye being your starting quarterback as a rookie, you play him a ton in practice and in the games. And that didn't happen — and there was a reason for that.
And there's also nothing wrong with doing that.
As much as people are starved around here for good quarterback play, a competitive season and some entertainment value — which likely won't happen with Brissett — that's not a good reason to put the most valuable franchise asset since Tom Brady on the field.
He's just not ready. Not quite yet.
When Mac Jones truly competed with Cam Newton in 2021, Jones had two joint practices and 59 snaps in three preseason games. Thanks to Covid protocols, Jones got the Giants joint practice to himself and was 37 of 40. The Eagles practice had a ton of reps. In the preseason, Jones averaged 20 dropbacks per game while posting an adjusted completion percentage of 81.6, and a PFF grade of 92.2.
Maye took second-team snaps in the Eagles joint practice (16 dropbacks to Brissett's 26), averaged 12.6 dropbacks in three games, his adjusted completion percentage was 68.8 and his PFF grade was 60.
There isn't one good football reason to have Maye start Week 1 on the road against the Bengals. There's one quarterback on the roster who has beaten the Bengals, and that's Brissett (with Alex Van Pelt as his offensive coordinator).
On Oct. 31, 2022, on Monday Night Football, Brissett outplayed Joe Burrow in a 32-13 victory. Brissett was 17 of 22 for 278 yards, 1 TD and a 133.7 passer rating. The Browns rushed 44 times for 172 yards and three touchdowns.
Basically, that's exactly how the Patriots will need to play this season if they have any chance of competing.
I'm not saying that's going to happen again, or that it can't happen with Maye, it's just the odds are longer for Maye.
So are the odds of Maye playing well enough in the first month of the season - including three road games - to justify exposing him to the downside: a total regression in the progress he's made, not to mention the physical and psychological effects should his playing time not go well. I'm not saying he couldn't succeed or win games in that stretch, it's just the odds are low. Taking on too much risk with a young quarterback is a dangerous proposition.
I know the downside: he's not ready for this, he looks, confused, throws interceptions, gets the crap kicked out of him and all the progress you've made get ruined as he goes into survival mode instead of playing mode. You already see some of this the longer he plays in the preseason. He starts seeing the rush a little bit, moves into pressure. Plus, it's not like he's ripping through the Patriots' defense in practice. Mac did that. We saw it on the practice field, against the Giants in practice. We don't have that from Maye, not saying he's not getting to that point.
What happens if you're down 21-0 in the second quarter against Bengals with Maye starting? Do you bench him? Do you let him ride it out in a meaningless game? If it was Brissett, you can get the kid's feet wet without pressure. Maybe he gains some confidence when the other team has its foot off the gas.
That's too much risk for me.
What do we know about Maye at this point?
He is a really good athlete with elite physical traits — which is why you take him third overall. The upside is huge, probably the best of his draft class. Because Maye's a great athlete, he has the ability to make a few plays that certainly Brissett can't make, and there are other guys in the league that aren't going to make them either.
He's made those plays based on 20 reps against the Eagles' and Commanders' second and third stringers against really vanilla defensive schemes. That does not mean he can do that playing 80 snaps in a road NFL game against NFL starters and elite defensive minds like Lou Anarumo (Bengals) and Mike Macdonald (Seahawks). The only time we've seen Maye against anything close to that was the Eagles joint practice and Maye was worse than Brissett (Brissett: 11 for 20, TD, 6 sacks, 3 drops, 2 INTs that were not his fault; Maye: 5 of 8, 8 sacks, fumble). Granted, that was before Maye started his ascent. Maye's no longer that player.
In the last two preseason game, we've seen Maye's athletic ability, arm strength and his ability to make plays. It's certainly tantalizing, especially because all that is in stark contrast to Brissett or even Mac Jones.
But Maye is still far from a finished product. He may not be "miles away" as I once said after reacting poorly to the Eagles' practice and the decision to play Maye only six snaps against the Panthers. Might be more like a mile.
Could Maye go out there right now and win games? Yeah, probably. But that doesn't mean that should happen. Zach Wilson won his fourth career start and three games his rookie season with the Jets. Was he ready to play? Was that the best thing for his development? Of course not.
Maye's made great progress over the past three weeks. He took the confidence he gained against the Eagles and run with it. It's been fun to watch. He keeps checking off boxes, including operating under center (Ja'Lynn Polk playaction pass) and the two-minute drill against the Commanders. There were times this summer when he was plagued by indecisiveness and double clutches, I wasn't sure if Maye would get there by the end of camp. He proved me wrong. That's something else I love about Maye and why I'm not so worried about him having to play early: his demeanor and mental toughness appear off the charts. If he has to play early, I don't think the risk of him seeing ghosts like a Sam Darnold or Wilson are all that high either.
But that doesn't mean he's ready to play.
Developing a franchise quarterback, especially one who is young and underdeveloped as far as playing experience, is a lot like baking a cake. About a half hour in, that cake is going to smell really nice in the living room. You'd love to slice into and take a bite. But that doesn't mean it's ready to eat. You gotta let it bake all the way through.
Let Drake bake.
Maye has made some plays, but his film is also littered with rough ones as well.
He's still extremely awkward under center. He's slow getting out, which has caused issues, and he's still fumbling and bobbling snaps. He's missing some easy throws and reads.
The notion that is ready to start an NFL game on the road is really flawed.
Jones started his rookie year against the Dolphins in the season opener at home. Brian Flores and Josh Boyer threw everything at Jones and the Patriots, and then some. Double corner blitzes, fake indicators, blitz zero. Jones completed 75 percent of his passes and if Damien Harris doesn't fumble, the Patriots don't lose 17-16.
A very, very impressive game for any young quarterback, let alone a rookie making his first start. Had a little bit of shaky stretch there as the Dolphins ramped up some of their pressures and confusion techniques. But once Jones got a handle on that, he sailed to the finish. I can now see why Josh McDaniels said he has "total confidence" in Jones. This game would do that.
Totals from Dolphins game: 27-5-6, 5 no-decisions (86.8 positive decision rate)Totals from Jets game: 17-5-4, 10 no-decisions (80.8 positive decision rate)
Two-game total: 44-10-10, 15 no-decisions (84.4 percent)
I mean, I don't know how you can't be thrilled with that kind of performance after just two games. The speed of the game and the defensive tactics are the hardest part for a rookie to deal with, and Jones has basically started at a B-plus rate in terms of his decision-making. It's only going to get better.
So far, so good.
It took a good staff and a player in Jones who had a pretty good pro foundation when he got to New England thanks to his time at Alabama with Nick Saban, Brian Daboll and Steve Sarkisian. Jones learned how to deal with all those types of things during the course of camp. He had a crap ton of reps. Even then, was Jones ready for it all? Not really, but he was as close as you're gonna get.
The decision to start Jones and cut Newton came because Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels thought they could compete with Jones, and they were right. They believed, 'If we put this guy in there, we can run most of our offense and, give ourselves a chance on third down. And he handled enough blitzes in training camp to kind of know what to do, so he won't get checkmated right off the bat in any of these games.' And they were right.
It's impossible for us to judge definitively if Maye can do those things. We're not in the meeting room, but Van Pelt sure seemed to answer it the other day to Yahoo!
“Jacoby right now is more suited with the skill set and his toolbox to be able to handle a lot of the issues that come up and Drake is still learning that,” Van Pelt told Yahoo Sports. “You don't want to put a guy out there when he doesn’t know exactly how to protect himself from certain looks. So that's the whole process right now. And I think at some point, if and when that does happen, then it will be obvious to everybody.
“But right now, very comfortable with what Jacoby can do.”
Maye's still thinking about just getting the ball when his hands are under center. He's not thinking about the defense. He's just thinking about, 'I hope I don't fumble.' You can see that on film. And again, that's not his fault, he's just not quite ready to go.
When they do have to play him, they better have a really expert game plan, and they better call it very expertly for him, so that this doesn't just devolve into something that's horrible. It's not going to be the defenses he saw in the preseason.
Another huge factor in all this is the team around him. It doesn't look great now, but we can't say definitively this team can't compete. What we do know is the coaches don't know much about this team right now. They don't know how they're going to move the ball, or even who is lining up where on the offensive line. The Patriots have much to sort out offensively and that could take the entire first month of the season. Do you really want Maye to be the crash test dummy while the Patriots are experimenting with a bunch of things? No thank you.
It's exciting that he's got the ability. I still don't love the way he throws the ball. There's still something funky about that and will need to be perfected over time. His feet aren't great. They're okay but he drifts into pressure and puts himself into some bad situations. Under center is not very good. And that was against nothing on defense, not very good players, and not much scheme.
Complicating all this, and perhaps rushing the Maye timeline, is the fact that Brissett is not good. He can do it for stretches, but he's going to get exposed at some point. They're gonna realize this, if they don't already. He knows the system. So did Brian Hoyer. Both are the type of players who make you feel good in practice, but you put him in an NFL game and he's 18-30 with a 61.1 completion rate as a starter — on better offenses than the one he's on now.
They're not good enough around Maye. If he had already shown to the coaches that he's good to go, I think they would just play him. But obviously there's enough evidence that they don't think that's the case. And they're probably right. I just think they don't love the alternative in Brissett either.
But that's not a reason to start Maye. Don't do it until he's ready.