It’ll take time for Drake Maye to become the Patriots’ starter — maybe until the beginning of training camp, until the end of the preseason or even until the first few games of the 2024 campaign have passed and the offense needs a spark.
But the looming — and seemingly inevitable — shift to becoming the long-term quarterback solution doesn’t mean that the No. 3 overall pick in April’s draft has everything figured out already, and after the Patriots’ rookie minicamp session Saturday, Jerod Mayo reiterated that sentiment to reporters.
“He has a lot to work on,” Mayo said. “He has a lot to work on, but I have no doubt that he’ll put the time in. … You didn’t see him out here yesterday, but he was here all night trying to get on the same page as everyone else.”
Maye, who spent his collegiate career at North Carolina, will compete with Jacoby Brissett — back with the franchise that drafted him after stints with the Colts, Dolphins, Browns and Commanders — to start Week 1, and Mayo, a first-year head coach, was careful not to divulge any hints about what New England’s plans could be.
Still, the stakes surrounding Maye’s development are elevated, given that the Patriots’ last first-round quarterback — Mac Jones — struggled to the point of netting just a sixth-round pick in a trade mostly designed for a fresh start.
Maye threw for 7,929 yards and 62 touchdowns across his final two seasons with the Tar Heels, but before the Patriots selected him, ex-New England head coach Bill Belichick detailed the flaws in Maye’s footwork during a segment on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
“You can see here, he’s all over the place, never really sets his feet, never really gets into position to throw,” Belichick, who parted ways with the Patriots in January after 24 seasons as head coach, said on the segment. “He gets strip-sacked. Too much hopping around. Step up and throw.”
The Patriots focused on footwork Saturday, according to ESPN, and Maye shared the quarterback reps with sixth-round pick Joe Milton, who played for Tennessee in college.
“It just comes down to time,” Mayo told reporters, when asked about what the Patriots have worked on with Maye off the field. “I mean, that’s the biggest hurdle, and then you work under some of these phase two, phase three rules where you don’t have as much as you want to. So you can’t have those conversations, but look, it’s all about, I mean, hard work works. We talk about it all the time. And he’s working hard.
“So day one is kinda hard. It’s kinda hard to really say this guy did X, Y and Z.”
Eventually, once the Patriots progress through their offseason workouts and training camp arrives, the quarterback competition buzz will increase.
Brissett started 15 games in 2019, 11 games in 2022 and could serve as a veteran placeholder until Mayo feels comfortable with his rookie signal-caller’s development.
But for now, Maye, at least, knows that his head coach will be monitoring for improvements.