Maye’s Plays: Patriots QB has another encouraging performance in second career start

Breaking down Drake Maye’s second career start against the Jaguars in Week 7.

Drake Maye’s second career start for the New England Patriots resulted in another loss. But, it was also another encouraging outing from the rookie, who tossed two touchdowns and 247 yards in defeat.

As we discussed last week in his starting debut, Maye’s mental side of the game continues to impress for a 22-year old. The rookie’s eyes often appear to be in the right place while he has operated primarily inside the structure of New England’s offense — although has shown his off-script ability when needed.

After turning the ball over three times (two interceptions, one strip sack) in his first start, Maye also ended Sunday with zero turnovers. However, he did have several turnover worthy plays that resulted from continued accuracy issues.

It was also encouraging to see offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt put Maye in the pistol a handful of plays, where Maye played plenty during his time at North Carolina. The alignment lets Maye play where he’s comfortable while Van Pelt can maintain his under center/play-action calls.

Moving forward, we’d also like to see more of the designed quarterback run game — something New England has not taken advantage of during Maye’s two starts. Perhaps that had something to do with the knee injury that landed him on the injury report and/or the playing surface at Wembley Stadium, but using Maye’s athletic skillset should boost a struggling ground game.

For now, however, let’s get into some of his most notable moments from Sunday in this week’s Maye’s Plays.

Mental win

Alex Van Pelt has praised his rookie quarterback for beating blitzes in practice since taking over as the starting quarterback. That included one touchdown throw last week against a zero pressure that left his coordinator saying “wow.”

Maye showed that ability out of the gate Sunday, as he capped off his opening drive — in which he went 6-of-7 for 62 yards and a touchdown — by beating a Jacksonville blitz.

On 3rd-down, Jacksonville brings pressure off the right side of the offensive line which leaves Maye ‘hot.’ The rookie recognizes it and quickly finds his ‘hot’ receiver in JaMycal Hasty out to his right.

The back does the rest to find the end zone and give New England their first opening drive touchdown of the season — where Maye also had strong completions to DeMario Douglas, on a similar drive concept the receiver feasted on last week, and a chunk gain to Hunter Henry.

Anticipation

One of the biggest issues the plagued the Jacoby Brissett-led offense through the first five weeks was the quarterback’s lack of anticipation in the passing game. Maye, on the other hand, has succeeded early in that area.

As mentioned in the beginning, Maye continues to see the field well and play within the offense. That has led to several strong anticipatory throws including the aforementioned chunk gain to Henry (second throw below).

New England’s quarterback found his tight end later in the first quarter on the exact same play on the opposite side of the field, again beginning his throwing motion before Henry even got into his route break (third clip).

Maye’s second touchdown of the game was then an excellent combination of timing and touch. With New England running all verticals to put the middle of the field defender in conflict, Maye is then able to drive a ball over the lower defender and beat the overtop safety — all while leading K.J. Osborn to the ground to avoid contact.

Boutte shot

The Patriots’ second touchdown drive got kickstarted with a pair of 30-plus yard completions by Maye. One of those went to Kayshon Boutte on a similar connection to the duo’s 40-yard touchdown against the Texans in Week 4.

Maye will never be shy of attacking one-on-one matchups, which is what he gets with Jacksonville’s safeties rotating post snap into a single-high. That leaves Boutte one-on-one on a fade route to his left where Maye drops one in the bucket. Credit to Boutte for pulling away from his defending and for the impressive catch.

Misses

It was an overall positive game again for Maye, but some accuracy issues remained against the Jaguars. Again, that shouldn’t be a complete surprise based off his college film at North Carolina.

One miss resulted in a near interception and one of his turnover worthy plays. Maye starts the play by looking for on of those one-on-one matchups to his right. Ja’Lynn Polk, however, gets beat at the line of scrimmage which leaves Maye a tad late working back to the middle of the field. He then attempts to flick and an all-arm pass out to Osborn which allows Tyson Campbell to undercut it for a near pick.

Maye also had a few erratic misses elsewhere in the quick game — one to Pop Douglas on a free access out to his left and one out wide right to Rhamondre Stevenson.

One play the rookie may also like to have back came on New England’s second to last drive of the game. On 2nd-and-3, Maye opens to his right but does not like what he has. As he works back to his right, the pocket appears to open up for him to take off up the middle.

As he takes off the pocket then quickly closes on him resulting in a gain of just one-yard which also allows the 24 seconds to run off the clock until the next snap. In the process, Maye misses an open Kendrick Bourne on a shallow cross and Henry further downfield if he stuck in the pocket.

It’s a similar play from the big hit he suffered in his NFL debut against the New York Jets in Week 3, where a running lane appeared to present itself before quickly closing. The rookie will learn that comes with the speed of the NFL game.