Pats Pulpit
In the aftermath of his team’s opening day loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel acknowledged the possibility that the team might be putting too much on quarterback Drake Maye’s plate. On Thursday, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels disputed that notion.
Speaking to reporters from the Gillette Stadium podium, McDaniels gave a strongly-worded “no” as the answer to a question about Maye and the volume of information he has to digest.
“We haven’t given him anything more than what we’ve given him all year, which is not too much,” said McDaniels.
“We have to understand it’s his first game in our system. I think we all learned a lot from each experience we’ve had. Every practice; Washington joint practice, Minnesota; preseason games, the little that we were able to work together; and then the first full game that we have an opportunity to go through our operation, and see things for the first time., and use our rules and follow our rules.”
The partnership between the 2024 first-round draft choice and veteran coach started earlier this year, when Vrabel and the Patriots brought back McDaniels to serve as their offensive coordinator. The goal of the hire was clear: help maximize Maye’s talents and turn the flashes he showed as a rookie into a consistent foundation to build on.
Against Las Vegas, McDaniels saw flashes of that. He praised Maye for making some good plays and decisions, and for keeping himself safe from harm with the ball in his hands.
Ultimately, however, the young passer and New England’s offense failed to put enough positive plays together to compete for the victory. The unit scored only 13 points, and looked particularly suspect in the second half.
While McDaniels vowed to learn from the experience, he also made sure to point out that developing Maye is an ongoing task.
“I’m focused really on the process of him getting better very day,” he said, ”because I think the view of it is it’s got to be a long-term vision of where this guy’s going to be. He’s going to be a really good player.”
