Pats Pulpit
The New England Patriots managed to return to .500 in impressive fashion last Sunday. Now, their biggest challenge of the season so far awaits: the team of head coach Mike Vrabel will take on the Buffalo Bills in a primetime meeting on Sunday night.
Naturally, most of our attention this week was on that particular game. That is not the full extent of stories coming out of Foxborough and indeed the NFL over the last few days.
And so, let’s clean out the notebook in another edition of our Sunday Patriots Notes.
Sunday’s game against the Bills will mark Drake Maye’s 17th career start, meaning that the 2024 first-round draft pick will soon have a full regular season’s worth of starts on his résumé. So far, the Patriots can feel good about where he is at: Maye appears to be progressing nicely and so far this season has shown signs of a true sophomore jump under new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
In fact, his development in 2025 looks a lot more encouraging than that of other second-year passers in the league. The following post by Fantasy Life’s Ian Hartitz illustrates this: Maye is the only QB out of that group in the top 10 in expected points added per dropback.
sThe difference between Maye and his peers becomes even more dramatic when outlined as follows. His total EPA of 47.10 this season is significantly ahead of second-placed Bo Nix at roughly the same number of plays. And while the rest of the group is progressing on a horizontal plane, the arrow for New England’s passer has started pointing in the right direction.
Obviously, the sample size is rather small at this early stage in the season; it also remains to be seen how Maye will fare against a team like the Bills, who will present his toughest test so far. Nonetheless, out of the teams to invest in a quarterback early in 2024, the Patriots can probably feel the best so far.
While Terrell Williams officially remains the Patriots’ defensive coordinator, his recent cancer diagnosis has forced the team to shuffle the deck on that side of the ball. Inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr has been right in the middle of this process, moving up to acting DC and game-day play-caller.
Meanwhile, Vinny DePalma has also played a big if less prominent role. The defensive assistant has helped free up Kuhr to focus on helping take over for Williams.
“I think Vinny’s done a fantastic job taking a big step,” said linebacker Jack Gibbens. “He got a great opportunity and he’s definitely crushing it. I mean, he puts in the work. He cares about the guys. He’s there for us anything we need. Can’t say enough good things about Vinnie. He’s doing an amazing job.”
A former linebacker at Boston College, DePalma joined the Patriots under previous head coach Jerod Mayo in 2024. He was one...
