Why haven't Drake's fundamentals been fixed?

[Rob0729]

I wonder how much they prioritized Maye focusing in on learning McDaniels offense over him working on his fundamentals. I mean McDaniels' offense is complicated (even dumbed down from the Brady years) and relies on a lot of presnap reads and require a lot of QB intelligence. Did they focus on Maye learning how to read defenses presnap and making adjustments over working on the fundamentals.

And I am not sure how good McDaniels is as a QB coach. Do we know how influential he was in developing guys like Cassel or Garoppolo? Or was his only contribution to their development was revising the offense to fit their skills.

A lot of this is on Maye. Brady always spent the offseason working with specialty coaches like Tom House to to improve his technique. Even Mac Jones worked with House in the offseason after his rookie year. I wonder if Maye worked with a footwork expert during the offseason. I tend to doubt it. It won't help this year, but hopefully he will next offseason.

 

[Bill Lee]

I recall fundamentals were a huge point of emphasis last year, and if memory serves, he made significant progress. But now his fundamentals are being called out as partly responsible for his inaccuracy, both in preseason and last Sunday. So, are his fundamentals still a big issue? And if yes, why did he regress? Why didn't he come back this spring with those locked down? If he was even moderately like TB12 in terms of his drive to be better, he'd have been working over the whole offseason to improve fundamentals. Either he didn't work very hard on it, or he did and it didn't take. Both are red flags to me. Am I off base here?

 

[jdlboot14]

I wonder how much they prioritized Maye focusing in on learning McDaniels offense over him working on his fundamentals. I mean McDaniels' offense is complicated (even dumbed down from the Brady years) and relies on a lot of presnap reads and require a lot of QB intelligence. Did they focus on Maye learning how to read defenses presnap and making adjustments over working on the fundamentals.

And I am not sure how good McDaniels is as a QB coach. Do we know how influential he was in developing guys like Cassel or Garoppolo? Or was his only contribution to their development was revising the offense to fit their skills.

A lot of this is on Maye. Brady always spent the offseason working with specialty coaches like Tom House to to improve his technique. Even Mac Jones worked with House in the offseason after his rookie year. I wonder if Maye worked with a footwork expert during the offseason. I tend to doubt it. It won't help this year, but hopefully he will next offseason.

agree with this 100%
Truth is - AVP and Macartney (whatever the heck his name was) - really spent a lot of time with Maye reworking and drilling him on mechanics. And it worked, or at least improved a ton from the ball-knowers who commented last year.

But, JMD has never been a good QB teacher. He expected that stuff to be done already, and always had TB - who took maniacal steps to do it on his own. So, clearly, now the focus has been so much on learning this new offense & reading D & thinking & protections... Maye's form and mechanics have slipped. That's a failure of the current QB coach. PERIOD.

 

[Bill Lee]

Drake has good mechanics on most throws but people like to throw mechanics are an issue whe he doesn’t properly set his feet to throw. Of course every QB has bad mechanics based on that definition.
The main issue is there are too many times like the DD overthrow where he does have time to reset and throw with proper mechanics and does not.
Game moves fast, many times you can’t. Mahomes might have the worst mechanics in the NFL based on throws without proper mechanics yet he’s had success.

It’s basically a few plays a game that he needs to calm down and reset himself
to act like it’s a major issue that he needed to work on in the off-season forever because he does not know how to throw is just crazy

Indeed, people need to calm down. Plan A is to give Drake time to develop. Plans B-Z are all worse than Plan A.

 

[Vindicate]

I recall fundamentals were a huge point of emphasis last year, and if memory serves, he made significant progress. But now his fundamentals are being called out as partly responsible for his inaccuracy, both in preseason and last Sunday. So, are his fundamentals still a big issue? And if yes, why did he regress? Why didn't he come back this spring with those locked down? If he was even moderately like TB12 in terms of his drive to be better, he'd have been working over the whole offseason to improve fundamentals. Either he didn't work very hard on it, or he did and it didn't take. Both are red flags to me. Am I off base here?

I think the best way to think of it is by asking: by season's end, did you believe that the team (mainly coaches/staff) actually improved any single thing they labeled a "focus area"?

I chalk it up to that. McCarthy spending the year on IR and not being able to play a single snap had more consistent and constructive mentorship than Maye did being thrown to the fire with coaches who had no plan. Maye has to actively address the bad habits/fundamentals he had coming into the NFL, but whatever bad habits come from running for your life every single play to throw to poorly schemed, mid-athletic receivers who aren't open.

I know some think any rep is a good rep for development, but I still think that bad reps exist and Maye pretty much _only_ had bad reps last year

 

[Bill Lee]

Not if the QB were Baker Mayfield.

Or Tim Tebow.

 

[SammyBlueCat]

BINGO!

 

[Wozzy]

 

[mgteich]

Always blew me away that people genuinely think coaching is that material to the development of a proffessional athlete. This is any sport and not just football.

Unless a player has the required innate talent, skill and drive, the coaching means absolutely nothing.

Drake will sink or swim based on his own capabilities. Patriots fans have a distorted view of how hard it is to become a good QB in the NFL.

Yes, I'm sure that there are QB's who have developed to be top QB's while having poor a coaching. ROFL.

Of course, it take talent to be a top 15 QB. It also takes good coaching for all but the best who might become good in spite of their coaching,

 

[Bill Lee]

I chalk it up to that. McCarthy spending the year on IR and not being able to play a single snap had more consistent and constructive mentorship than Maye did being thrown to the fire with coaches who had no plan. Maye has to actively address the bad habits/fundamentals he had coming into the NFL, but whatever bad habits come from running for your life every single play to throw to poorly schemed, mid-athletic receivers who aren't open.

I know some think any rep is a good rep for development, but I still think that bad reps exist and Maye pretty much _only_ had bad reps last year

You are echoing many of the points from the Mark Daniels piece linked earlier:

It’s easy to watch J.J. McCarthy lead the Minnesota Vikings to a fourth-quarter comeback and wonder out loud if the Patriots would’ve been better to trade down in 2024. Those lamenting for McCarthy over Maye also rarely mention that McCarthy went to a team that ended up winning 14 games last season. His top target, Justin Jefferson, is one of the best in the NFL. His right tackle, Brian O’Neill, is a 2-time Pro Bowler.

Last year, Maye entered an imperfect situation with an underwhelming roster and coaching staff. He played behind an offensive line that allowed the most sacks in New England since 1999. He threw to a cast of receivers who struggled to beat man coverage so much that opposing defenses double-teamed tight ends Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper.

Ref: Mark Daniels: Patriots fans should be patient with Drake Maye

Besides, as our friend Wozzy likes to point out it's a team game and what I saw was more of a team that finished 5-12 last year fading late in the game against a team that finished 14-3 last year that should have blown them out.

One big problem was that the Bears special teams stunk. They missed a field goal, the let a punt get blocked, and they were not good on on kickoff and punt returns.

Also, the Bears offense had a good first half but didn't do much in the second half so their not-very-good defense wore down late in the game.

Overall the Bears had 12 penalties for 127 yards so gave up two 60 yard drive's worth of yardage on penalties.

 

[mgteich]

he's the only one that can do anything about it.

Let's fire all the coaches!

Of course, the coaches have responsibilities with regard to correcting quarterbacks and improving their techniques.

 

[Force Zero Boomer]

Anyone at 3 was taking Maye. You're making up your own version of events just to hate BB. Hucklebaby just wants to cry about how mean Belichick was.

BB has a history of making bizarro world picks. I'm not so sure. Regardless, the jury is still out on Drake.

 

[dliverey44]

Here is Josh Allen talking about his change in mechanics. Back to my point on 300-pound guys chasing you he addresses that as as well. Says he still has plays today where he feels his mechanics get off but has to continually reinforce them before the game. The only way to work on keeping mechanics is a lot of reps. Drake will work on this, it takes time.

Hopefully the fact that Josh and Drake are friends gives me some hope that Josh can help him down the same path.

 

[Triumph]

Its McDaniel's fault.

 

[mgteich]

agree with this 100%
Truth is - AVP and Macartney (whatever the heck his name was) - really spent a lot of time with Maye reworking and drilling him on mechanics. And it worked, or at least improved a ton from the ball-knowers who commented last year.

But, JMD has never been a good QB teacher. He expected that stuff to be done already, and always had TB - who took maniacal steps to do it on his own. So, clearly, now the focus has been so much on learning this new offense & reading D & thinking & protections... Maye's form and mechanics have slipped. That's a failure of the current QB coach. PERIOD.

If Maye's mechanics have slipped so much in one game, then I guess we should fire the QB coach ??? [BTW, that isn't Josh].

Perhaps we should give the QB coach a few weeks to help develop Maye after his year in purgatory. If the issue is that Maye needs better coaching of mechanics, then we should hire an assistant QB coach to take on that role.

 

[mgteich]

Its McDaniel's fault.

Josh has big shoulders.

He can take posters who are ready to replace him after one game. Josh can be the lightning rod for all criticism of the Offense that was the very worst in the NFL in 2024. If the Offense isn't at least average by now, it is certainly Josh's fault. Josh can take it all year.
=====
If you meant your post as sarcasm, I apologize for not recognizing it.

 

[signbabybrady]

BB has a history of making bizarro world picks. I'm not so sure. Regardless, the jury is still out on Drake.

Obviously can't be sure but when making comps it's generally best to avoid the butterfly effect aspect otherwise you can't ever really make a comp.

 

[Huckleberry1]

Just plain old football fans like me. Only played sandlot (town too small to have a team) so my only experience is about 70 years of watching, listening and reading about it. Even a dumbass like me can see when his feet are not set, backing up. Maybe what he is lacking is the commitment to working to improve or maybe he just can't grasp it. Regardless, it's still a thing and he's the only one that can do anything about it.

You can think that, but I don’t buy it. If understanding quarterbacks mechanics and fundamentals is so easy why did Brady go to Tom House and others during the offseason to work on them? Fans like to think they know this stuff, but they don’t.

 

[Huckleberry1]

Not if the QB were Baker Mayfield.

I agree, Belichick would have gone after Mayfield had he come free.

 

[p8ryts]

So is that a no? Of is that someone told you so?

No, that's a go look at Lazar's reviews. Look at the most recent one from Sunday. There are others I've watched on Youtube. You can belittle my perception all you want. It remains.