Jerod Mayo Admits Patriots Have Unusual Plan For Drake Maye

Drake Maye isn’t your typically backup quarterback, so the New England Patriots aren’t treating him like one.

CBS’ Evan Washburn gave some insight into New England’s plan amid the club’s season-opening win over the Cincinnati Bengals last Sunday, revealing Maye will receive “30% of the first-team reps” during practice sessions throughout the season.

Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo was asked about the report Friday and did everything but deny it.

“That’s definitely accurate. It’s no secret. We have a quarterback in the wings that needs to continue to develop,” Mayo said, per team-provided video. “Normally, it’s the starter gets let’s say 95% of the reps, and the backup doesn’t. This is a little bit different. And we had a conversation. How do we — I guess the struggle is, how do you get your starting quarterback prepared for the game and also continue to develop the guy in the background, which is Drake. It is like a 70/30 split, you’re right on the head. And we were very thoughtful. And we talked about, we have a development plan for Drake. That’s part of it. And I try not to get too deep into what that plan actually looks like. But he still takes reps with the starters. He does a good job on the on the show team as well. And he’s doing a good job, and you can see his confidence continues to grow.”

Maye reportedly isn’t just working normal scout team reps, either, as he’s not being told what the defense is doing to combat him. What does that mean? New England essentially is giving him as many live reps as possible, playing both with and against as many people as possible.

The Patriots will eventually call Maye’s number, but until then, he’ll continue to be given more tools to develop than most other players in his position.