After a solid end to his rookie campaign, there was a lot of hope for Drake Maye coming into the 2025 season. New England Patriots fans wanted to see Maye hit a massive sophomore leap and blossom into a great quarterback in the NFL. That, sadly, wasn't quite the case during their Week 1 game against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Maye looked promising in the first half, but the second half was rough for both him and the Patriots. The Raiders' pass rush clearly bothered the sophomore, forcing him to rush and not play on his own pace. A costly interception in the second half led to the Raiders scoring the go-ahead touchdown, a lead that they will not relinquish.
After the game, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel was asked about whether Maye had too much to think about. The head coach said that they will look into that, and that their goal is for Maye to not have to do too much while still arriving at the right solutions.
“I think we have to evaluate that,” Vrabel told Mike Kadlick. “I think we have to find out, is there something there… we have to figure out what our guys do best and do that. We just have to make sure that we're giving him answers without having him do too much.”
Maye threw a whopping 46 passes on the day, completing 30 of those for 287 yards and a touchdown. That being said, the Patriots' offensive line struggled to protect Maye, forcing the quarterback to run on multiple occasions. It was a rough outing for the Pats on offense: they converted only four of their third-down opportunities and only ran for 60 yards on the day.
Next up on the Patriots' docket is a date with the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins also lost their Week 1 game to the Indianapolis Colts, with Tua Tagovailoa struggling as well.
