Patriots preaching patience with development of Drake Maye

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Drake Maye must have been itching to throw the football after the New England Patriots' OTA session on Monday. And so that's exactly what he did, finally. After the team ran sprints to conclude their practice, the rookie quarterback put in extra work throwing against air with his fellow 2024 draft selections, Ja'Lynn Polk and Javon Baker. 

They were the last three Patriots to leave the field.

Maye didn't get many opportunities to work with the offense during practice. He spent most of the session, particularly in the early periods, watching Jacoby Brissett and Bailey Zappe run 11-on-11 and 7-on-7 drills with the top offensive players. 

Maye paced back and forth to see different angles of the offensive plays. He occasionally went through his steps to take mental reps and mirrored the quarterback movement. But for the most part, he just stood there picking the brain of his two primary mentors: assistant quarterbacks coach Evan Rothstein, donning a blue Patriots visor to match his blue tracksuit, and offensive assistant Ben McAdoo, sweating into his Patriots camouflage hat and white towel draped over his grey t-shirt. 

Maye's braintrust is a bit of the old, Belichickian regime (Rothstein) and the new, Alex Van Peltian regime (McAdoo). But the decision to largely hold him out of the team drills felt a bit more Belichickian than anything. It looked like a narrative signal to Maye and, likely, the media.

The message: He's not playing. He's watching. He's learning. And he's really not playing.

The Patriots have been consistent in telling the media and Maye that he won't come in as the starter. He'll have to beat out Brissett for QB1. It felt likely he'd start the offseason as QB2. But Maye seemed to be the