Drake Maye Watch: Supporting Cast Killing Patriots Rookie

FOXBORO, Mass. — It’s getting old, isn’t it?

Patriots rookie Drake Maye must feel like he’s in a “Groundhog Day” scenario at this point, as each practice he’s participated throughout training camp has followed a similar script. If you’ve been following along with our “Drake Maye Watch” series, you know how things go.

Maye has been working with the second-string offense, which has severely impacted his ability to string together consecutive reps, let alone consecutive days. It’s not like the talent isn’t evident, because it very much is, but as soon as New England transitions to competitive team drills his days nosedive.

Do you think anything changed Saturday?

Nope.

Maye finished just 3-of-11 during full team drills, with three of his drop backs ending in “sacks.” He also threw the ball away three times, which is perfectly okay, but doesn’t ever look good on paper. Kevin Harris dropped one of the incompletions. JuJu Smith-Schuster fell down in the middle of his route on another. He really only had one obvious miss, which was an overthrow to Javon Baker during two-minute drill.

Joe Milton III, on the other hand, finished 1-of-4 during his brief opportunity in team drills, with his only completion coming on a dump off to Terrell Jennings.

Do you remember when no-named social media accounts were telling us he was going to be the starter coming out of camp?

Yes, we’ve also fallen victim to the idea that training camp numbers mean… well, anything. You don’t have to, nor should you, let us ride our high horse during this whole thing. We do believe in providing context, however, and in this situation, the most important piece of context is that the Patriots are shoving Maye out there with a bunch of dudes who probably don’t belong in the NFL.

Is it the end of the world? No, Maye won’t be playing behind Kellen Diesch, Layden Robinson, Nick Leverett, Michael Jordan and Zuri Henry aren’t going to be blocking for him whenever he gets into a meaningful game.

New England might want to think long and hard about giving him opportunities to work with the top unit, though. Jerod Mayo said he would, but as preseason games start to approach, the chances are dwindling.

It isn’t time to panic just yet, but we’re going to have more and more questions if things don’t start to change at One Patriot Place.