In a season where the expectations weren’t high to start with, it’s hard not to at least come away from Sunday’s 28-22 loss to the Rams with a reason to believe the Patriots really do have something special in Drake Maye.
Going up against Los Angeles, the Patriots rookie was battling a player in Matthew Stafford, who has a Super Bowl ring and is among the top quarterbacks in the league. Still, Maye took him to the wire and certainly never looked intimidated. In fact, Maye put together a spirited effort that nearly saw him pull off the upset in a season where the Rams, who got back to .500 at 5-5 with Sunday’s victory, are themselves battling to try and get back into the postseason mix.
Still, Maye didn’t make it easy. And credit his tenacity and determination, especially given a lot of the adversity he had to fight through during the course of this game.
Maye, who finished the day 30-of-40 (75%) for 282 yards, 2 touchdowns, and one interception, showed some considerable toughness following the shot he took in the second quarter after Los Angeles brought pressure up the middle and drilled him in a play the rookie never saw coming.
On the play, Rams defensive end Braden Fiske shifted to his right, lining up over left guard Michael Jordan before the snap. However, on the snap, he moved to his left and shot the gap past center Ben Brown, who was engaged with defensive tackle Kobie Turner after clearly believing that Jordan would take care of Fisk.
Instead, Fisk made a nice move to his left, slipping past both players and past Brown, with a clear lane toward Maye. Maye never had a chance, having turned to his right with the intention of throwing the football to that side and never saw Fiske coming.
Fiske then drilled Maye as he was about to release the football, wrapping him up and taking the rookie to the ground, and Turner hopped on the football for the turnover.
That gave the Rams the football deep in Patriots’ territory at the New England 12 yard line. Stafford then hit Nacua one play later for a 12-yard touchdown, giving the Rams a 14-7 lead.
But Maye never let up. He brought them right back down the field on the ensuing possession on a 9 play, 57 yard drive that ended in a 32-yard field goal, and he also engineered another long drive following Kupp’s 69-yard touchdown, which saw Slye hit another field goal to keep it within one score at 21-13. He followed that up with a 10-play, 70-yard drive to answer another Rams touchdown, keeping things close at 28-19 after Slye had the extra point blocked.
He then put together yet another long drive, this time for 66 yards on 13 plays, as Slye hit yet another field goal to cut the Rams’ lead to 28-22.
Rams head coach Sean McVay spoke highly of Maye after the game, and was impressed by what he saw from the Patriots’ rookie quarterback.
“You look at it, and you can really see his ability to create off schedule. I thought he did a great job of being able to make plays in the pocket today, extend drives,” said McVay of Maye. “I thought he was patient, taking some underneath check-downs where guys were able to create. We had tighter coverages, and he was able to fit the ball into tight windows. He looks like a stud. I didn’t do too much work on him coming out. I do know a lot of people that studied him really hard that I truly respect their opinions loved what he was all about. You can see just the impact that he has on his teammates, the way people talk about him here. He looks like he’s going to be a special player for a long time, and he gave us fits today.”
Maye had a phenomenal second half. The rookie was 16-of-19 (84.2%) for 132 yards over the final two quarters, including a stretch where he hit nine-straight passes as the offense fought its way back into the contest.
Maye also put together a fourth quarter where he completed 8-of-10 for 91 yards along with a touchdown, missing just one throw prior to his game-ending interception.
The turnover was frustrating, and it’s hard to put that 100% on Maye. He was picked off on a deep pass down the middle to Demario Douglas on their final drive, who never looked back for the football.
Watching it back, had Douglas turned and stopped, he could have potentially made the grab in front of defensive back Kamren Kinchens, who came up with the interception as the ball ended up right in his hands. Instead, the second-year wideout didn’t appear to be on the same page with Maye, with that turnover obviously icing the game.
“Yeah, it was a two-high look and Pop’s up the middle, and they’re pretty good up front rushing five,” said Maye after the game on the play. “I tried to kind of put it on them and kind of hit them over the linebacker, and Pop was thinking probably deep, but at the end of the day, just got to be on the same page, and I think Pop did the right thing, I guess, got to just talk through more conversations. Just goes back to me during the week doing more, talking through different situations, hey, I may put this one on you versus let it rip. That’s about it.”
It’s disappointing, especially since it looked like Maye had a shot at pulling off a come-from-behind win, which would have capped off an unbelievable performance.
Still, Maye continues to prove he’s a gamer and it’s becoming more and more clear with each passing week that the Patriots clearly have something in their rookie quarterback.
The fact there’s hope is all many were hoping for heading into this season. But not only is there hope, Maye has also shown plenty of promise for a team that certainly needed it. The more we see from him, the brighter their future continues to look, which will definitely make whatever happens over these final six games interesting.
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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.
