Curran: How Maye ‘took a step forward’ in Wednesday’s OTA practice originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Drake Maye is starting to find his footing with the New England Patriots one month after being drafted third overall.
Our Tom E. Curran and Phil Perry were in attendance for Wednesday’s OTA session in Foxboro, where Maye practiced running the offense alongside veteran quarterback Jacoby Brissett and third-year signal-caller Bailey Zappe. Fellow rookie QB Joe Milton was absent.
Curran came away impressed with how Maye improved over last week.
“He looked to me as if he took a step forward from last week,” Curran said on Wednesday’s Early Edition. “He had more reps in totality because Joe Milton, the other rookie, wasn’t out there. But I liked some of the throws. The notion of him being robotic — which I espoused — or him having a hitch, really wasn’t seeing that. I’d give him an A-, B+ relative to what I would expect from him.”
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Agreeing with Curran’s grade, Perry was encouraged by how Maye rebounded from a couple of low moments.
“I liked the fact that we saw him struggle a little bit, very briefly,” Perry said. “In two of his first three snaps in 11-on-11 periods, we saw him miss an open receiver down the field — JuJu Smith-Schuster it looked like on a little wheel route — just overthrew him by four or five yards incomplete.
“The next play, they actually sort of broke a huddle for his third play of 11-on-11, had to re-huddle because there was some sort of miscommunication, and then he proceeded to throw a tight end screen to basically no one, incomplete. But from there, he completed 14 of his next 16 passes including what I thought was the best throw of the day, which was about a 40-yard throw to Tyquan Thornton down the sideline. You couldn’t have handed him the football any better. So I like that he started out slow and seemed to then get his feet underneath him despite what had happened early in the practice to have a really strong day.”
As for how reps were split in the session, Maye continued as the apparent No. 3 QB on the Patriots’ depth chart.
“It was interesting. He got more 7-on-7 snaps than either of the two veterans. … He got more seven-on-seven work than the other two because he had the field all to himself whereas Bailey Zappe, Jacoby Brissett shared a field during that 7-on-7 period. But in terms of the 11-on 11-stuff, what we saw was Jacoby Brissett always up first and Bailey Zappe typically up second and definitely getting more 11-on-11 reps than Drake Maye. So he is still running as the third guy, it’s pretty clear.”
The Patriots will continue OTAS on Thursday and Friday, followed by sessions June 3-4 and June 6-7. Mandatory minicamp is scheduled for June 11-13.