Some New England Patriots news and notes for this morning:
Maye Continues Making Progress
One thing that stood out with the numerous videos released by reporters on Wednesday was that Drake Maye appears to be making steady progress as he continues adapting to life as an NFL rookie.
The footwork that everyone has spoken so much about already looks better, with Maye showing a lot more fluidity during his drops yesterday. That, coupled with his accuracy, are both positive signs for a player who the team obviously has high expectations for in the coming years.
Watching him move through several drills yesterday, it’s pretty impressive. The ball is also coming out quicker, with the hitch he had in his throwing motion also looking like it’s improved. Unlike last week, he appeared less deliberate in his overall motion, with Maye looking much more fluid and the ball coming out clean and on target.
That’s obviously what you hope to see at this point in the spring. Especially from the #3 overall pick.
However, it wasn’t perfect, especially early on. There were apparently a few early miscues during the early part of the 11-on-11 portion of practice before Maye eventually settled in.
“I like the fact we saw him struggle a little bit, very briefly,” said Phil Perry of NBC Sports Boston on Wednesday night. “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, looked like on a little wheel route, just overthrew him by 4 or 5 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 the fact 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 a result, the hours and the hard work appear to be paying off, which is certainly a good sign the deeper we continue to go heading into training camp.
Zappe Continues to Be Behind Brissett
With the Patriots having drafted two quarterbacks last month, Bailey Zappe’s situation here in New England has definitely become a little more complicated.
To this point, he’s remained the #2 quarterback in drills, with Wednesday’s session seeing a repeat of the previous one we saw as Zappe took the snaps behind fellow veteran Jacoby Brissett. Yesterday added a side note of Joe Milton not being present, albeit there were no reports related to his absence. As a result, there was more work to go around, which allowed Maye to get more reps compared to the workload he had previously.
Still, Zappe remains a player who, while comparing him to both Brissett and Maye, is definitely overmatched. He simply doesn’t have the physical tools those two possess. Despite that, he continues to carry himself exactly as you’d expect.
Nothing has changed, and he’s a player who simply intends to bring it each day.
“I’m having fun, y’all. You know, they bring in guys every year, obviously,” said Zappe. “They want everybody to compete, and that’s what they’ve been telling us this entire time, that everybody’s going to get an opportunity. Everybody’s going to compete. Like Mayo says, it depends on what you do with that opportunity.”
Maye apparently isn’t alone when it comes to practicing his footwork. That’s been something Zappe has also been working on, noting that it’s helped improve his timing when it comes to various routes.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously it helps,” said Zappe when asked about the importance of footwork. “The better you get your footwork down, the more the better timing it is as far as certain routes and certain concepts. You don’t feel as rushed and you don’t feel as you’re late or something like that The feet time up with the route.”
Like everyone else, with the exception of Brissett – who played in Van Pelt’s system previously – Zappe is learning a new offense compared to the one he played under during his first two years in the NFL.
However, one other thing that stood out is that Zappe mentioned he’s been pleased with the fact offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt not only understands the concepts he’s been helping them with but also the way he describes them and his ability to show them his vision has really helped with this transition.
“There’s been minor changes to what I’ve done in the past to what AVP likes, but it’s been a smooth transition,” said Zappe. “Obviously, he’s played the game, so he understands how to describe it to you and how to show you how to do it. So it’s been a smooth transition as far as footwork stuff, and I like it, so makes it easy.”
Zappe Not Backing Down
While Zappe may look like he’s facing an uphill battle, the third-year quarterback is still approaching things with the intention of being in the mix this fall.
It’s obviously tough when you’re going up against a veteran in Brissett who was essentially paid $8 million and was brought in to start the season, while the player they just took at #3 overall – Maye – gets comfortable in the offense. After that, he’s expected to be the guy going forward.
Couple that with the addition of Milton, and it would be easy to understand why Zappe might get frustrated or discouraged. However, that hasn’t happened. He’s been told by the coaching staff that all four of them are in a competition to prove they deserve to be out there, and that’s how he continues to approach it.
“Yeah, I’m not making as much as those guys,” said Zappe, laughing. “No, I don’t view it as that way. They’ve told all of us that there’s going to be a competition. Everybody’s going to have the opportunity to go out there and prove that they can be that guy. All four of us are going to do our best to do that. And whoever gets that job, the other three of us are going to help that guy do whatever he can on the field to win games.”
Zappe was asked on Wednesday if, while he talked about having to prove himself, he was asked if he felt he did enough last season to do just that after how he played.
“In some aspects, yes,” said Zappe. “There are some things that I did, personally, that I feel I did really good, and there’s some things that I feel I did really bad at. Those things, obviously, throughout the summer that I’ve been continuing to work on.”
“I’ve been with AVP, been with T.C. [McCartney], even talked to Jacoby about some of those things, how I can fix those things and not have them happen and cost us games because you look back at it, the mistakes that I made cost us wins. Just talking to those guys and just trying to fix those things and show that I am improving in that aspect of my game.”
Odds and Ends
Zappe revealed on Wednesday that he already had some familiarity with assistant offensive coach Ben McAdoo. When asked about him during his press conference, the quarterback said the two met in 2021 in Carolina ahead of Zappe being taken by New England. “He’s just another voice in the room,” said Zappe of McAdoo. “We have great coaches in that QB room. The fun fact about him is when I was coming out in ’21, I had my top 30 visit with him at the Panthers. We already had a relationship coming in, so we hit the ground running.” … Tyquan Thorton reportedly had a good outing on Wednesday, with the third-year wideout hauling in a big play from Maye while also looking solid catching the football. Despite the weight he’s put on, the big question will clearly be how he handles it when the pads come on, and the hits come, as injuries have clearly submarined him to this point in his career. … Another player who had a good showing was rookie Javon Baker, who hauled in a nice throw from Brissett who was rolling out and hit him up the sideline. “He made a couple of plays today. He’s getting better,” said Brissett during his press conference of Baker. “Obviously, somebody that we are looking forward to seeing what he can become. He’s been doing a good job of getting better each and every day and taking the coaching from the meeting room into the field and trying not to make the same mistakes twice. Right now, that’s all you can ask from him.” … Rhamondre Stevenson appears to have trimmed down, and also apparently looks a little quicker, which was something both Tom Curran and Perry talked about in their recent podcast. “I feel like I’ve noticed that Rhamondre Stevenson looks a little more svelte to me, ” said Perry. “He just looks a little thinner, and I think that could be good for him. Contract year, I get it. I’m all for that, making that push, if that’s what’s happening here.” … Jerod Mayo joked about the adjustment Dont’a Hightower has had to go through so far, noting that the players are giving him a similar hard time to what Hightower once gave him during his playing days. “He came to me this morning asking me for advice, and I was like, ‘Well, welcome to coaching.’ As much as you think it’s about X’s and O’s and getting guys to play hard for you, it’s also a leadership role,” said Mayo. “I’m a huge believer. Look, you manage processes. You don’t manage people. You lead people. We bounce some ideas off of each other, but he has to come up with his own philosophy and the way he deals with things. It’s been good for him. He should apologize to me when I coached him. He kind of gave me those same headaches.”
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
