Pats Pulpit
A short trip to the blue medical tent following a scramble in Tennessee led to the buzzword around Patriots quarterback Drake Maye being “sliding” last week.
While New England certainly needs their MVP candidate and franchise quarterback healthy, the dual-threat nature of Maye’s game is going to result in him taking hits at times. The issue here, however, was that Maye was passing up open receivers to instead scramble leading to unnecessary hits — something he admitted post game and we broke down in last week’s Maye’s Plays.
Returning to Gillette Stadium in Week 8, Maye looked back at home. The 23-year-old continued to stay a step ahead of defensive coverages and worked through full progressions instead of taking off running. Even when he did use his legs to his advantage, Maye ended a 16-yard run by getting out of bounds and a 28-yard explosive gain with an (awkward) slide.
“We’ve got to send him to Spring Training and figure out when to slide, and continue to talk about that,” chirped Mike Vrabel post-game.
The play led to another highly efficient and productive game from Maye against a highly-ranked Browns defense. That included a perfect second-half where Maye finished with a perfect passer rating of 158.3 behind eight completions on eight attempts for 114 yards, three touchdowns, and 34 yards on the ground.
Here’s how Maye got there and continues to climb the early MVP ladder.
3-5-CLV 19 (10:54) D. Maye pass short middle to R. Stevenson to CLV 4 for 15 yards. Josh McDaniels got the Patriots ground game going out of the gate with a pair of scripted 10-plus yard carries for TreVeyon Henderson, as New England uses the offset-I formation to break an inside run (12 yards) before coming back to the same look three plays later just to flip a ball out to the rookie (18 yards).
Eventually in the red zone, Maye shows his progress from last week in Tennessee by working through a full-field progression — starting his read with Stefon Diggs to his left before working to his right where he finds his back Rhamondre Stevenson split out wide for a 15-yard gain.
3-8-CLV 8 (9:30) D. Maye sacked at CLV 18 for -10 yards (M. Garrett). On the following third-down, Maye takes the first of five sacks from future Hall of Famer Myles Garrett, who works through chip help and left tackle Will Campbell to bring down the QB. But, Maye seems to get hung up on his read to his right with Kayshon Boutte and Stevenson on an option route — missing Hunter Henry uncovering over the middle of the field. New England has to settle for a field goal.
1-10-NE 15 (:53) D. Maye pass short right to K. Boutte ran ob at NE 30 for 15 yards. After a three-and-out on New England’s second possession, Maye starts strong on the Patriots third drive of the game. Off a play-action bootleg, Boutte runs a...
