FOXBOROUGH - As he closes in on his first-ever playoff game, Drake Maye is drawing even more attention than usual. His Wednesday press conference grew in size, with a lot of unfamiliar faces in the audience, all hoping to squeeze off a question to the Patriots’ most important player.
Maye handled it like he has all season, a mix of ‘aw shucks’ combined with an unwavering confidence that tells you he’s actually where he wants to be and, if I’m reading this correctly, not overwhelmed by the moments that lie ahead.
“Yeah, there's obviously a little bit of mixed emotions,” he said. “I think the biggest thing is I’m excited, excited to get an opportunity to play home playoff games. That's what we started at the beginning of the season, things we want to do here and goals we want to accomplish, and we’ve got our chance and opportunity right here.”
That checks with everything Maye has told us in previous weeks. He’s admitted there’s always some nerves, some butterflies, as he works through the week to get to the fun part, the game itself. And we know what’s happened once there:
- 354/492 (71.9% - over 9% greater than expected)
- 4,394 passing yards
- 450 rushing yards
- 35 total TDs
- 8 INTs
- 113.48 passer rating
- EPA per dropback 0.287 (1st in NFL) and overall EPA (172.67, also first)
But Sunday night could be a different animal, in part because of the opposition.
“This is as good of a unit as we’ve played,” Josh McDaniels told us Thursday afternoon. “There’s no question about it.”
I dove into some of those details yesterday, discussing Jesse Minter’s scheme (4-man base, lots of match-quarters and cover three behind it). McDaniels concurred, but added that there’s a level of complication to the Chargers’ defensive approach that flies in the face of this being a “do-what-you-do’ unit.
“Very few repeated looks, “ he said. “They're going to challenge your ability to identify where they're at. They're a team that will send guys from - anybody could blitz in certain situations. They'll challenge your eye discipline, your rules and then your ability to, once you identify it, then it's,’Are you tough enough to stand in there and slug it out?’ That is not going to be a small thing on Sunday night. So we're going to need every ounce of our toughness, our details, our techniques, our fundamentals and our execution to consistently do anything well against this unit, because they're really good.”
Maye had been incredibly efficient versus disguised looks this year - hell, he’s been efficient against damn near everything - but the Bills did throw him off his game during the second half of their second meeting this year. They played a mix of man and zone coverage, more than the Chargers are known for (80.9%, fourth most in the league). If Maye is given the time and sees it well, the offense could eat like a fat man with a hollow leg.
The second-year signal caller leads in EPA versus LA’s two most common coverages (+31.7 vs. quarters and +72.1 against cover three) and overall, is tops in EPA against zone defenses, period, proving Maye’s willingness to (and success) push the ball down the field, even against a defense designed to keep the top on (if you will).
“I think you just take chances when they're there,” Maye told us. “I think in one-on-one coverage, you've got to take chances. One-on-one, I like our guys. They're making plays on the football when they have one-on-one coverage, and I like putting ball placement and giving them a chance to go make a play.
“At the same time, just be patient. Don't get bored being efficient, executing underneath, and letting things come to you. I think that's the biggest thing is starting off, staying on track on first and second down and knowing that when we're behind the sticks, they have the advantage.”
Deciphering what the actual coverage is post-snap doesn’t fall solely on Maye. The pass catchers need to see it the same way, a) to understand what they need to do to get open, and b) not to end up in the wrong place and hang their QB out to dry.
“There are a lot of things that I think the guys are going to need to do,” McDaniels stressed. “They’ve got to identify it (coverage) once the ball is snapped, because they're not going to just stand there and show us every play what it is or isn't going to be. So I think the first thing is identify post-snap. You know, what am I dealing with?
“And then, if there's a body that's going to match to you, you're going to need to use really good top-of-the-route physicality and techniques to get open and create some separation. And if it's clearly playing more like zone, then we're going to need great spacing and all the things that you need to do well against that, too.”
This group has proven to be quite capable of that, and even when there have been moments or quarters where it hasn’t gone smoothly, Maye’s playmaking ability has kept the team afloat long enough to eventually get on the same page and solve problems. But unlike in weeks past, where there was always the promise of another day and another game, that’s not what Sunday night is about.
“It's now,” Maye acknowledges, “or you're going home.”