Here\u2019s what Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels had to say during his press conference on Monday:<\/p>\n
On how Drake Maye is continuing to progress in his offense and what he sees in him at this point:<\/strong><\/p>\n “I think we make progress every day. He’s done a lot of good things. Then to me, the greatest part about training camp is you have an opportunity to see different things, experience things you’ve never experienced, either with the group that you’re out there with or within our own system against different defenses, our defense, Washington, Minnesota this week. All of those, to me, are super valuable for us in terms of his growth in the system and our offense’s growth together. Just to encouraged by what we’re doing every day. I really like the trajectory that we’re on.”<\/p>\n On what the learning curve has been like for him:<\/strong><\/p>\n “He works extremely hard every day to be prepared for each practice. He’s a quick learner, that’s for sure. The biggest thing we’ve tried to talk about since we got to get on the grass in the spring is to try to limit the number of repeat errors. If we make an error, that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing as long as we learn from it and don’t repeat it again. He’s a pretty quick study in that regard. He’s got a great memory. Sometimes in football, things happen one day, and they might not happen again for two, three weeks. But you still got to try to process that in the moment and do it when it counts. Again, excited about him, the whole group, in terms of their willingness to learn from their mistakes, and then come out and get better the next day.”<\/p>\n On what these guys can do and if that’s an ongoing process:<\/strong><\/p>\n “Yeah, I think so. I think that we’ll probably continue to go on through training camp.\u00a0 Then usually, that’s going to probably the evolution of what you do with these guys will continue during the season, especially the first year together. I think today, we’re trying some new things with different people. Now that we have a better understanding of each guy’s skillset, how much they can process, who can play multiple positions, the types of things that they do well on first and second down may be different than what they do well on third down. In the red zone, same thing. We’re really trying to hone in on what they do well and what they do best, and then continue to try to grow and build from there. ”<\/p>\n On with a quarterback like Maye how difficult it is to get someone that fine line between playing hero ball, saying ‘just live to fight another day,’ and if that’s a tough line to straddle:<\/strong><\/p>\n “Hopefully, it won’t be a tough line to straddle.\u00a0 I think he’s still learning all of those things. He’s like… He’s such a gifted athlete. I think a lot of guys that play this position that have ability to throw it, but also to move and make plays with their legs and extend plays, they have to find that line themselves, honestly. We can tell them all we want, ‘Don’t make a bad play.’ You know what I mean? I’m going to be the first one in the end zone when he extends a play. We all saw the one to pop early in training camp. If I was telling him to throw that away, I’d have been pissed at myself. You know what I mean? I think, I would say this, he’s definitely more aware as we go into this training camp and the next practice and all that. You saw him slide a couple of times the other night, which was great. Again, there’s a fine line between holding onto the ball too long in certain situations and then doing the right thing to help the team. Those guys that were blessed with that ability, they’re the ones that have to go out there and learn how to do that and balance it.”<\/p>\n On the fact the way he was able to create last year, was a real threat and if he has a number in mind for either himself or Mike Vrabel, ‘Okay, we don’t want to exceed this in terms of carries for him because then we might be asking for trouble:’<\/strong><\/p>\n “Yeah, I think … I mean, we don’t have that.\u00a0 We haven’t talked about that. But I think he had 400 and some yards rushing last year on no designed runs. I think the reality is those loose plays are hard to predict when they’re going to come up, you know?\u00a0 Like, the other night, we didn’t call a pass play for him to scramble for a first down, but he did, and it was a good play. I think he just has to understand when there’s nothing there and he has an opening, what to do with the ball. I think he’s really improving in that area, and understanding his value to the team is when he’s healthy. I think that’s what we’re all talking about. Players that have the ability to do both, they have to be smart about it because when Coach Vrabel always says, ‘We’re going to protect the team.’ You know what I mean? Whether that you play running back and you protect the ball, or you make a great decision off the field, or you’re the quarterback and you scramble and you decide to slide, all of those things are protecting the team. I think Drake is definitively looking to try to do that every time he has the ball in his hands.”<\/p>\n On the ‘tush push’ and his thoughts on it:<\/strong><\/p>\n “I’ve never done it. It doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t do it.\u00a0 I think it depends on if you feel like you need that to gain additional inertia and move the ball forward.\u00a0 Obviously, the Eagles are exceptional at it and have been for a few years now. I don’t dislike the play.\u00a0Again, I think each team is probably going to make their own decision. One thing I think it is, is it’s not an easy play to practice in full pads and get good at because we’re obviously not going to create a bunch of scrums on the practice field with our own defense and risk injuries and those kind of things.\u00a0 You’re going to have to find creative ways to do that if you’re going to do it. I’m sure defending it is much the same conversation. How do we defend this if we’re not allowed to dive at the center’s legs, you know what I mean? All the things that defenses try to do to stop it. We’ll look at everything that may help our team win, and certainly, Vrabes will make the final decision on things like that.”<\/p>\n On the risk-reward of Drake’s game specifically when it comes to extending plays, and if he’s found himself doing anything differently as a coach with a quarterback withi this particular skill:<\/strong><\/p>\n “Not really. Because I think as a coach, you have to coach each play as if they’re not going to run past the quarterback and give him a lane to take off and run with the ball. I think that’s kind of a happening, if you know what I mean? You happen to… It’s like a hole in one in golf. You know what I mean? None of us are hitting it to go in the hole, but sometimes… I haven’t ever done it, but every once in a while it’ll go in and you’ll go, ‘Wow, that was great.’ You know what I mean? I think to me, when he scrambles, hopefully it’s under the right circumstances. I thought you saw him the other night in a few of those things, hang in a pocket, and do the right thing. We have to coach as if the defense is going to play good defense, and we’re going to need to maintain our posture as a passer and try to find the open receiver, which I think he’s done a great job of. Again, in training camp, it’s hard to simulate those things because we don’t run with the ball a whole lot, it’s scramble and all the rest of it. We’ll see. It’ll be a work in progress during the season.”<\/p>\n On TreVeyon Henderson’s touchdown, even though it was more of a special teams play…<\/strong><\/p>\n “We count that as an offensive play, too.”<\/p>\n …and what he saw on that and what kind of threat\/weapon does he bring<\/strong>:<\/strong><\/p>\n “I think everybody sees TreVeyon the same way. First of all, he’s a tremendous kid. Awesome individual, really hard worker, smart kid, can process a lot of information, which allows you as a coach to try to use him in the ways that he should be used. Explosive, I think we all saw that the other night, and tough, physical. I don’t have many negatives to say about Trey, but excited to coach him. We’ve had some really good players with skill sets that are somewhat like his. Maybe nobody quite as fast as… [Shane] Vereen was probably the fast… Him and Danny Woodhead were fast, but TreVeyon is fast, fast. So excited to be with him.”<\/p>\n On if he’s seen any tape of them:<\/strong><\/p>\n “Yeah, he’s seen plenty. Now he’s putting it on tape, too.\u00a0 We use a lot of practice film to review what we can do better. Obviously, we have some things we can use from the past, but certainly trying to get these guys to do with their own selves.”<\/p>\n On the rule changes in cut blocks that have made screens a little more difficult to run league-wide, and what the key is in being able to practice and execute those at a high level:<\/strong><\/p>\n “I think you need to practice them at full speed. Whether it’s in a joint practice or some type of a scrimmage situation, I think those are always good. Then we called a few in the game the other night just to … It’s hard to simulate that in shells without a full-speed rush and all the rest of it. When the rushers have to pull off the quarterback, it’s not the same. I think as many of those as we can practice and work on, I think that’s the best situation is hopefully, we can run a few here this week against Minnesota, see how they go. But coaching off of them, and then when we get to the regular season, obviously, we’ll have an opportunity to do it against real competition each week. Hopefully, we know what we’re trying to get out of the play, the lack of cutting and all that. I mean, it goes both ways. They’re not allowed to cut us on tosses and all that. We’re not allowed to cut them on screen. It evens out at the end.”<\/p>\n On having two rookies on the left side, with Mike Reiss having a stat that it hasn’t been done in 25 years and what is giving him the confidence those two guys can handle what is about to come their way:<\/strong><\/p>\n “I think the way they work every day certainly is … that’s where it starts, and their performance. They’ve earned that right. This isn’t something that somebody just said, ‘Well, just going to do that without watching them in practice and evaluating what’s best for the team.’ I think certainly Mike makes those decisions. We’re all here to try to support the guys that are in there and try to improve their skill set each day. But I think they’ve performed admirably. There’s going to be some things they’re going to learn throughout the course of every game, every practice. Our job is to help them improve. So, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re not going to get frustrated with a mistake here or there, and we’re going to make sure that we try to do everything we can to help them get better. So far, those guys have made progress steadily throughout the course of their time here.”<\/p>\n On Garrett Bradbury saying yesterday that they’re going to game plan a little bit for [Brian Flores] because he’s seen other teams coming in against him and his word was ‘disaster,’ and what specifically it is about the way Brian runs his defense is going to benefit them this week:<\/strong><\/p>\n “I feel like you just jinxed me, Andrew [Callahan]. Yeah, I mean, we’re going to see a lot of different things. I think we’ve seen a lot from our defense here, which has been great work for us. But also, this is going to be a new… They’ll align in different spots. They’ll pressure us in different ways that maybe our defense hasn’t yet. It’s just great to go up there and get tested.”<\/p>\n “What happens in these practices is you find out how well you know your rules because you can’t anticipate everything. We’re not going to have three days of meetings and three practices, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, to get ready to play them. We’re going to have, hopefully, a heck of a work day today, and then get ready to meet on them a little bit later today and tomorrow, and then go up there and let it rip on Wednesday. I’m sure we’re going to learn a lot. There’s going to be some mistakes. There always is both ways when you have a joint practice. Hopefully, it’s similar to what we just experienced with Washington, which is a great day of work. Hopefully, a couple of days up in Minnesota.”<\/p>\n (Editor\u2019s Note: This transcript is done via the available footage and is subject to typos. 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