Giardi: NFL Notebook - Maye has to solve this problem, or else; plus, is KC a run-first team?

After facing a Seahawks team that played 86% zone coverage in the opener, Drake Maye and the Patriots will now face a Steelers defense that, per TruMedia, played some form of zone coverage on every snap in week one (the only team to do so). Not only that, but the Patrick Graham-coached unit dialed up the fewest number of blitzes in week one. 

This could prove challenging for Maye, who has struggled over his last five games (postseason and week one) against split-safety looks, which he saw on over 52% of snaps. That’s not about to change until (if?) the third-year quarterback finds more success and plays teams out of that approach, which is designed to take away the deep ball that the quarterback and this offense thrived on a season ago.

There’s another element to Maye’s struggles against these types of defenses. It’s the point that Seahawks safety Julian Love made while he was mic’d up in the Super Bowl. Here’s the clip that’s become very popular over the last 10 days or so.

The Seattle defense said something similar after Maye’s meltdown two Wednesdays ago, and on rewatch, it was clear that some of his hesitations or ragged mechanics were - in part - because he wasn't always sure what he was looking at. So did Love have a point? And is that another area where Maye has to grow if he’s going to become the quarterback they think he can be?

“I guess you could say there's truth to that: guys want to see the play right there,” backup QB Tommy DeVito told me. “I think if you compare anything to what Matthew Stafford is doing, I mean, that's just an anomaly in itself, where he tends to get away with no-looking or getting seen doing more no-look passes than some others. So I think that if you want to try to compare it in that sense, you can. But I don't think it's anything too