LANDOVER, MD. \u2013 Now we get to find out how smart the \u201cnew\u201d Patriots are.<\/p>\n
Drake Maye outplayed Jacoby Brissett by a mile on Sunday night at Commanders Stadium. Brissett lasted only the first series, hurt his shoulder on a sack, and got out of Dodge quick. He spent the rest of the game on the sideline with a headset on and not wincing in pain.<\/p>\n
Maye came in for the second offensive series and played the rest of the first half. He ignited a long scoring drive with a 17-yard scramble on third and 14, then led the Patriots to an 11-play, 88-yard scoring drive climaxed by an 19-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Harris, a nice check down in the right flat. Along the way, he hit Ja\u2019Lynn Polk for 29 yards, and Pop Douglas for 18 yards. You could have stopped the game right there and you may have been screaming \u201cStart Maye!\u201d<\/p>\n
And again we caution you: Start Brissette. Make Maye wait a bit.<\/p>\n
After the touchdown, the Patriots did not reach the end zone for the rest of the night. Well, they did, but it was negated by a penalty. Maye was bedeviled by his offensive line in many ways, mostly illegal formation calls on tackles Mike Onwenu and Chukwuma Okarafor. One such call on Okarafor late in the first half wiped out a 48-yard touchdown pass to K.J. Osborn. The tackles kept lining up a half-step behind their neighbor guard, and fans had to be kicking themselves as to why and how this kept happening.<\/p>\n
Which leads up to this point. The offensive line is not yet ready to support a rookie quarterback. Period, end of story.<\/p>\n
So stop screaming for Maye to start in two weeks at Cincinnati. When things get real, defenses will no longer be vanilla. If Maye doesn\u2019t at least have time to process and make decisions, it is much better to let Brissette take the lumps and not Maye. Maye could easily get his confidence destroyed like Mac Jones.<\/p>\n
For most of this preseason finale, both teams played their second and third stringers, and Washington rallied for a 20-10 win. The Patriot offense did nothing in the second half with Joe Milton, other than a cool play here and there. Milton had a few impressive scrambles, but didn\u2019t really show anybody anything. Hopefully you have forgotten all about the preseason opener against Carolina.<\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t talked a lot about the defense because the starting assignments are mostly all set and nobody out there really made you stand up and take notice. Thank goodness nobody got hurt, and the only mystery on that side of the ball is who will take the place of Matthew Judon and Christian Barmore.<\/p>\n
The entire fortunes of this Patriot team, given only an 8% chance to win the division title, clearly rest with the offense, and more specifically, the offensive line.<\/p>\n
The penalties Sunday night against the O-line were just plain unforgivable. The officials called a tight game, and 19 total penalties were assessed. The Patriots had ten of them, but the yardage lost for the Patriots was 157, compared with only 53 for the Commanders. There were also a few offensive holding calls as well, but the illegal formations have to be addressed and very emphatically.<\/p>\n
Nick Leverett also once again had some issues with snapping the football. As starting center David Andrews looked on in disgust, Leverett had problems cleanly snapping the ball to Maye. Maye had the poise to just cover the football when it happened. Last week\u2019s game against Philadelphia was lost thanks to a bad snap by Leverett which Bailey Zappe could not handle. Leverett likely won\u2019t still be with the Patriots when final cuts are made on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Things get real on Sunday, September 8. The Patriots head to (we\u2019re on to) Cincinnati to take on a Bengals squad that will have Joe Burrow back. That\u2019s a tough opener for the Patriots. In 2001 the Patriots opened the season at Cincy and wound up winning the Super Bowl, but that won\u2019t apply here.<\/p>\n
The preseason is now over, nobody suffered catastrophic injuries, and we\u2019re ready for the final preps.<\/p>\n
Just make sure Brissett starts as QB1. If nothing else, don\u2019t mess up on that decision.<\/p>\n