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The New England Patriots have had a rough first season under head coach Jerod Mayo. New England is 3-13 heading into Week 18 and is one of the worst teams in the NFL this season. The Patriots are making a head-scratching decision related to their starting quarterback headed into the final week of the regular season.
Patriots QB Drake Maye is active and expected to start against the Bills in Week 18, per NFL Network's Tom Pelissero. Maye is listed as questionable on the injury report with a right hand injury. Still, he will be New England's starting quarterback for their final game of the season.
Maye ended up starting the first series of the game before being replaced with backup Joe Milton III.
This was an aggressive move for the Patriots for a number of reasons.
Drake Maye is the future of the franchise, so trotting him out for a meaningless Week 18 game feels dangerous. Especially when Maye has an injury to his throwing hand.
What's worse is that New England is one of four teams in contention for the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. This, plus Maye's injury, make a compelling case for benching the rookie and basically guaranteeing a loss in Week 18. It is no surprise they ended up turning to Milton III after one drive.
Mayo did make his intentions clear on Friday when giving an update about Maye's health to the media.
“Drake is our starting quarterback,” Mayo said via ESPN's Mike Reiss. “If he's healthy and ready to go, as we go through this week of practice, then he'll play. He's a competitor, he wants to play, and he's still developing. He'll be ready to go.”
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Drake Maye reflects on his growth during rookie season with Patriots
Drake Maye has made some great progress during his rookie season.
Maye was asked on Thursday about what he thinks is is biggest area of growth during his rookie campaign. He initially called it a “tough question” before giving a nuanced answer.
“I think it's hard to gauge myself, I think I'm just trying to attack each and every day, try to improve little things here and there throughout games, try to still protect the football better,” Maye told reporters on Thursday via transcripts on the team website. “I think that's something I need to improve on. What I would improve on, I think just playing the role as quarterback, being a quarterback in the National Football League. I've learned a lot from Jacoby [Brissett]. He's been a huge help with studying the call sheet, studying how to prepare, how to handle guys in the locker room, how to handle a huddle and how to have a kind of voice and command. Shoot, even when I'm up here in the media, don't sound timid or shy. I think I've kind of grown into that, and that's been my personality, but I think it kind of took a while for it to come out.”
Maye has thrown for 2,276 yards with 15 touchdowns and only 10 interceptions in 12 games played this season.
It will be exciting to see how Maye plays in 2025 after another offseason in New England and presumably a better overall roster.
