FOXBOROUGH - Time for the latest chapter in the ongoing saga: “Is or isn’t Drake Maye’s right shoulder injured?”
Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels told us he “believed he (Maye) got dinged” in Sunday’s game against the Jaguars.
“We haven't had a big meeting and talked about specifically like exactly when this or that or the other happened,” he said. “But yeah, he ran the ball a few times last week, and I think that's when it happened.”
Ok, with that response, we now know why Maye made his first appearance on the practice report (full participant - shoulder) mere minutes after I asked him if his shoulder had impacted his throwing at all.
“No,” was the very first word of his response, which is why I thought this was being put to bed. Instead, Mike Vrabel, who Monday said he wasn’t aware of any issues, will almost certainly field questions about it during his normal Friday press conference. It also meant McDaniels was asked if he had to alter how he called games or change the work they did during practice.
“It has not,” he said. “He's always been a guy that can run and do things with his legs and all that, and he's taken a few hits since he's been in the National Football League. That's kind of part of the process when you can make things happen with your legs. You're gonna incur some hits.
“So he - they - would obviously tell me if there was something that we felt like we couldn't do, or he couldn't do. That has not been the case. I know he's a tough kid. I know that for sure. Doesn't make a big deal out of much, and so it's business as usual for us.”
Will it stay that way, considering when McDaniels thinks the ding happened? Wonderfully (he wrote, sarcastically), we’ll get to monitor that Sunday afternoon in Buffalo, though, as Maye reminded us, the shoulder does not affect his brain/decision-making. That’s been the real problem.
Maye has been hesitant to