It’s On Eliot Wolf To Build Around Drake Maye

By Steve Atkinson 

The 2-7 New England Patriots have a quarterback in Drake Maye. The final touchdown that tied the game in Sunday’s loss to the Titans is something we haven’t seen in years. While Drake made mistakes and threw some interceptions, he overall has the potential to be something special. It will be up to Eliot Wolf to build around him by bringing in talent at receiver and on the offensive line, something the previous regime failed to do for Mac Jones. If Eliot Wolf fails in this task, he will face the same fate as the previous regime alongside Mayo.

Can Eliot Wolf Put The Players Around Drake Maye?

Drake Maye is faster than Mac Jones and is more capable of moving out of the pocket. He was the leading rusher on Sunday, which indicates that the run game needs improvement. As Mayo pointed out, you don’t want your quarterback to be your leading rusher.

. I think Drake [Maye] was probably our leading rusher today. You never really want your quarterback to be the leading rusher, and that’s in all facets. We got to be able to move guys off the line. I thought their defensive line did a good job. They were hard to handle inside, especially #98, and we knew that coming into the game. We just got to be able to understand every team that we play, they’re going to have either good edge rushers or good interior rushers. We just got to do a better job getting those guys off the ball.”

Drake Maye looks like a quarterback that will be good in this league just like people were saying about Mac Jones in 2021. The real test is the off-season and the second-year jump that we never saw with Mac because Belichick put his buddy Patricia to coach offense. You won’t see a defensive coach coaching offense next year. It will be Alex Van Pelt or Ben Macadoo plus getting some tackles and wide receivers.

This season was a build-it year and getting a quarterback. The new regime was handed a roster with a bunch of holes and it isn’t going to take a season to get back to the way they were. It’s going to take a while. Mayo talking about Maye’s last pass in Sunday’s loss said

I think sometimes, as well as he has played, sometimes we forget how young he is. He’s going to continue to develop, and he’ll be a good quarterback in this league. Look, we’ll all learn from this, myself included.”

I’m sure Bill Belichick will criticize Mayo and the coaching staff for the defense in his various podcasts this week while offering no credit to them for having a quarterback. Why is that? Because he knows they have a quarterback and are developing him the right way, which is something he didn’t do for Mac and ultimately got fired for.

Drake Maye on the last play.

Yeah, first down and I see the safety, and I think throwing into the wind I got to put some more on it and just a dumb decision. Something you’d like to have back and especially in that situation where we could go at least tie it up. We’re, like I said, on our own 40 and you know sometimes the best play is to throw it away and that was a bad decision on my part.

Drake Maye can’t do everything on his own. It’s up to Eliot Wolf to add more players around him. I believe Maye will succeed because he has a lot of potential. You won’t hear that from Belichick and his associate Lombardi; instead, they’ll just criticize the defensive coaching staff.