Where Has the Old Drake Maye Gone?

I think I saw some.

Flattening out coming, um, because last year, so many things converged to put Drake in position to have an MVP season.

And I'm not saying it was fool's gold at all, don't get me wrong, but like there were a lot of things that I think, you know, positioned him so uniquely to make a real run at the MVP.

I voted for him for MVP.

He was a very worthy candidate.

Um, the circumstances change and this is a different year and a different team around him.

A different schedule.

And, uh, yeah, that was, I, that was not great.

Like that looked like a quarterback, that looked like a crisis of confidence yesterday in Jacksonville to me.

And I don't know how you get it back in midstream now, they're 3 games into the season , but, um, you know, what I saw, and I, I think what you've seen the first couple of weeks with him.

is a quarterback who's guiding the ball.

We've seen this with young quarterbacks before, right?

It almost looks like they're aiming, you know, and you're trying to be perfect on every play, and, um, when you do that, it actually winds up making it worse, you know.

So, I mean, it was, I mean, it was from the start, like the losing the ball, you know what I mean, the way that he did.

And, um, you know, the, the interception in the end zone at the end of the first half where, I mean, I don't know why Efton Chisholm versus Travis Hunter is the matchup that you picked there in close quarters.

That's the one he picked.

Um, shout out to Travis Hunter for having his first career pick.

It was, it was rough in a lot of different ways and I I think it's, it's another lesson too, like, quarterback development is not linear.

You know what I mean?

Like, I think the Josh Allen and the Patrick Mahomes and the Lamar Jackson's and the Joe Burrows might have fooled us into thinking that because those guys kind of were rocket ships that, that took off and kept climbing early in their careers.

Um, but I mean, this is more than, This is more than a, than, than, than a bump, right?

Because now we're talking about if you had the playoffs together with the 1st 3 games of the season.

Now that's 7 games, and he's got 19 turnovers over those 7 games.

Um, I'm glad you brought that up, and let me just, uh, reset off the top.

The Patriots lost to the Jaguars 35 to 6, and we'll get to Jacksonville here in a second.

Uh, this is kind of the big, uh, game, and then we'll get into each of our, uh, our couple here that we're breaking down plus the one-liners at the end.

Um, so, I'm glad you brought up that 7-game span.

I got a fun trivia question for you, Albert.

Um, Drake May has 9 fumbles and 10 interceptions over that time.

Uh, this is according to CBS Research.

So it's the postseason.

The seven-game span that we're talking about here.

Uh, 9 fumbles and 10 interceptions.

He's the first player in the NFL with 9 or more fumbles , and 10 or more picks in a 7-game span since which quarterback in 2019, um, uh, I'm not sure it's a quarterback that you would want to be compared to.

2019, he played this quarterback played on Sunday.

He's still in the NFL.

Carson Wentz, no, cause he didn't start on Sunday.

Um, Because I know once had that issue, um, former number one overall pick.

Fox Sports World Cup analyst Jameis Winston.

Oh, Jameis Winston.

Wow, it's just a dubious, like that was the that was the ridiculous Jameis 30-30 season, I think, where he threw for like it, you know, it's like 30 touchdowns.

It was the only 30-30 season in NFL history.

It was, um, and it would have been Bruce Arian's first year, right, as the head coach of the Buccaneers, and that was when they made the decision to go get Tom Brady.

Um, so I don't, a lot of these are conditional, right?

And I thought I, I gave Andrew Callahan from the Herald, uh, a lot of credit, uh, because he got DeVito after the game, and I thought this explanation was actually pretty good about what was going on with Drake May.

It's just that, and, and I, and I know that fans hate when coaches and players say it, but when you think about it this way, it makes a lot of sense.

He's hitting these plays in practice.

And so in a game, a lot of it is, I'm expecting you to be right there, right now.

And when I turn around, that ball's coming, right?

And in, in practice, it works.

And so why wouldn't you expect that to happen in a game?

And I think there's an absolute rigidity to To how May is playing right now.

You can see it.

It's obvious, right?

And if you turn on game tape from last year, and I was watching just a couple of dropbacks from last season, he's so fluid, he's so relaxed when he's in the pocket.

He's not that anymore.

And I don't know, like this is on Mike Vrabel, whether it's a mental lock or something that just needs to free him, or Josh McDaniels, someone needs to sit him down and talk to him, or maybe it's this, just the lack of security.

In, in your targets.

When AJ Brown comes back, does he feel a little bit better throwing one up?

Because on Sunday, he had a dot in the end zone to Matt Collins that was just dropped, right?

And, and so, there are these moments where like some of these balls are just also being dropped, and I, I don't wanna make a ton of excuses for Drake.

He's not playing well, but I think this is, this is a whole health thing, like there's a lot of issues going on with the Patriots right now.

Yeah, so I would say, um, you know, He's a conscientious kid.

He's made up of the right stuff, which is why I think he's gonna make it out of this.

However, uh, when I've talked to people there about this, um, what they've said is, and, and this is going back to the Seattle game, right?

And so the Seattle game, you know, they attributed all three picks to mental errors.

Um, you know, the first one, it was, you should have taken the checkdown to the back in the flat.

The second one was you're trying to muscle a ball in there and Julian Love baited you into a pick, and the third one was a complete disaster.

And You know, I, I, what, what I've gotten back is like Drake listens to it, Drake learns it, but sometimes quarterbacks have to live it.

And he had so much success last year, and so, you know, you, you, you learn to trust yourself playing a certain way.

And then they build a book on you, right?

And I think the book on Drake right now is for him to play quarterback, and I, I would, I would relay this story.

I was doing a story on Matthew Stafford over the summer, and I had a couple of people argue to me that like the NFC championship game.

Um, Matthew Stafford played about as well quarterbacked a game as you'll ever see, even though they lost, right?

Like, based on the defense, based on the environment, based on everything, like that was his, that was a quarterback at the highest level, right?

And so I asked McVeigh about that this summer, and he said, yeah, he's like, absolutely.

He's like, that game, he was like, like he was the best player on the planet.

And, you know, he said to me, he's like, the thing that I really respect about Seattle, this is McVeigh talking .

is they make you play quarterback, right?

And I think essentially that's what's happening with Drake now, is they are making you, they're making, defenses are making him play quarterback.

What does that mean?

Well, that means that they're not letting him out of the pocket, right?

They're cage rushing him, they're saying, we're gonna keep you confined within the pocket.

We are going to take away the shots, right?

So we're gonna play whether it's a cover 2 look, a combo coverage, like they're gonna spin the dial on them, but like they're gonna, for the most part, protect over the top.

And they're gonna make him go 1012, 14 plays, and their bet is you're gonna mess this up somewhere along the line.

You're gonna take a sack that's gonna knock you off schedule, you're gonna fumble, you're gonna throw up, something's gonna go wrong.

And The interesting thing about it is how the team, the Patriot teams that Mike Vrabel played on, that's how they played defense, you know what I mean?

Like, and so I think it's, it's, it's forcing growth from, it's forcing Drake to grow at a, at a, at a, at a faster rate than maybe he's ready for right now, and Like I think losing AJ Brown compounded it because that's sort of your get out of jail free card in these sorts of situations.

And that's a big help.

Like sometimes it just, it, it just alters the course of how you see a game.

It's like, I got one there.

I got one back, you know, that like this player, he's just gonna body a corner and he's just gonna get it for me.

Or, or.

Or they send more resources over to cover him and now it simplifies everything else, you know what I mean, everybody else, right on the flip side, Liam Cohen, I mean, my God, this was a, you know what, this was a statement game for the Jaguars.

I, they won't admit it.

I, I don't think they'll admit it, but You know, there are 3 teams that broke through last year, the Patriots, the Bears, the Jaguars.

Who are we not talking about this offseason?

Oh, not us, not me and you, but I'm saying like who, who was getting the least attention to those three teams?

Um, yeah, I mean, I guess the Jaguars, right, yeah, right, I mean, I, and I know you hate this storyline.

I know you hate this storyline, which is the 405 storyline from last week, right?

Like they're playing at 4:05 instead of 4:25 in Denver, but like I do think there was something that they, they wanted to prove against the other quote unquote upstart team from 2025 in the AFC.

Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I, I think that what we're seeing is the realization that you don't, if you're confident enough in your scheme, and you have a bridge to the personnel department, Travis Hunter notwithstanding, uh, at least for right now, then you don't need to win every offseason, you know, you can start doing things like the Jags did this offseason, like playing the comp pick game.

Um, building up your draft stockpile for future years and finding useful talent in different places.

What they lost in the offseason, I think, scared a lot of people, but this is now two absolute blowouts to start the year, and then the third game is, Is the mile high game, which is just notoriously difficult for teams to do, to do, and they were right there.

They, they, they're right 10 point lead like that's this is the Broncos team that just beat the Rams on, on, uh, and, and we'll get to that game in a minute, but Liam Cohen, the fastest coach, uh, in NFL history to 15 wins, um, beating Matt LaFleur actually to that, uh, distinction, is pretty cool, yeah, so, um, a, uh, a nice little, uh, Nice little bit of flowers for Liam Cohen, but this team is, is exactly what you would imagine Cohen's team to be in the most maximized way.

I mean, they're running the ball incredibly efficiently.

They're spreading the ball around on offense.

It's, it's just fun to, it's a, it's a good product.

I mean, the Jaguars are legitimately fun to watch.

I mean, and I, I think, like, honestly, they, Losing, like what I like is there's like a purpose behind everything, right?

Like, and I, and I, and I, I look at it like the running back situation, for example.

A lot of people would say, well, you lose Travis Echin and like that's a huge deal, and it was, but they viewed it more as an opportunity to reinvent their running game, and we want to be more physical in that area.

And so, you know, like they go and get Rodriguez and Tutan's going into his 2nd year, and it's a different-looking running game, right?

Like, so they, they, they achieved that.

Um, they've got like depth and balance.

And I think like the Travis Hunter thing is like an interesting example of it in that, like, Part of the reason why they're able to ease him back coming back off the knee, um, and that is a part of it, like, is that they have good depth at both spots.

They have Jacoby Myers and Parker Washington and Brian Thomas at receiver, and then they have Buster Brown and Jerryan Jones and, and Jordan Lewis at corner.

And so there's no need to like force anything.

And It's just, you know, I, I, I don't know, I look across the board, they're well coached, they're well conceived, um, they're gonna be a really tough out the rest of the year, and I think Trevor, like, Trevor just looks like he's playing faster.

He just, like when you watch him play, I mean, it's just, he, he looks way more confident and he's more like he's more sure of what he's seeing.

I had a great conversation with Liam about this over the summer that like, a lot of it is for him, giving him the freedom , like, hey, if you don't see something quite right, you can run, or you can try to break the pocket, like, I'm not chaining you to the pocket where you have to go to 4 and 5 in your progression.

Like, be an athlete if you need to be an athlete.

And I think that's been like freeing for him, and that like, you know, Trevor said this to me, he's like, you know, the fact that I don't need to worry about number 4 when I come to the line, like that's not like my thought process, um, has been liberating.

So I think in so many different ways, uh, They're in a great spot.

And hey, hey, hey, listen, I, I, I don't know if we've done this yet, but you gotta give credit to Shad Khan too for not taking no on an answer on this, you know, now a year and a half ago, because I was critical of the way that went down.

I thought it was really crappy in a lot of different ways, but It does look like you're saying getting peeling Liam Cohen away from the Bucks in the first place, right, right, right.

The method of how it happened was crappy.

What happened to Patrick Graham in the process was really shitty.

Let's call it what it is.

But, but like, I mean, it does look like they were right with, with their conviction that like this was the guy that they needed to go get.

Have to wonder if given all that's shaking out in Tampa, if uh they wouldn't have uh.

Thought differently and just promoted Liam and going to the head coaching job at some point, but we'll get to the Buccaneers down the road.