The elite quarterback play continued for the New England Patriots on Sunday.
After constructing his first career game-winning drive to secure a primetime victory in Buffalo last week, Drake Maye kept the foot on the gas pedal down in New Orleans leading the Patriots to their third straight win to improve to 4-2.
Maye has been the biggest reason for that win streak, as the 23-year old quarterback entered Monday night third in expected points added per drop-back (+0.33), third in completion percentage
over expectation (+9.7%), and sixth in drop-back success rate (53.3%).
In other words: he’s playing like a MVP candidate.
The success down in the Superdome was immediate as Maye played a near perfect first-half completing 11-of-13 passes for 185 yards and three touchdowns to produce a perfect 158.3 passer rating and +1.10 EPA/play (100th percentile). All three scores came on downfield targets — an area the Patriots unlocked on Sunday.
Through the first five weeks of the season, Maye had attempted just nine passes that traveled over 20 air yards. That wasn’t due to lack of success as he went 7-of-9 for 225 yards and a touchdown. Against the Saints, Maye, who was a prolific deep ball thrower at North Carolina, completed four of his five deep throws for 128 yards and the pair of scores.
New England wasted no time unlocking the deep ball, as Josh McDaniels dialed up a West Coast staple — post/cross off a half-boot — on the fourth offensive play from scrimmage. Against a post-safety coverage, DeMario Douglas (bottom) runs a great route to turn the safeties hips faking the corner route before breaking wide open on the post.
Maye hits him downfield off the half-boot action and the slippery Douglas does the rest.
After another deep touchdown to Douglas was negated due to a penalty on the next drive, Maye and the offense didn’t flinch and continued to drive into scoring range. Just outside the red zone, Maye then works off a bluff screen to his right with a safety overtop and quickly gets back to Kayshon Boutte who is one-on-one on the back side.
Following an athletic play to step up in the pocket, Maye delivers a beautiful on-target throw on the move to Boutte in the end zone who does the rest to secure the score.
“Boutte with a great play in the back of the end zone,” the quarterback said of the score. “Just trying to give him a chance on one-on-one. You know, one-on-one is open in this league and you got to know that.”
Two drives later the duo connected again as Boutte again found space downfield where Maye hit him for a 29-yard touchdown. While it was the last deep throw highlight in the stat sheet for Maye, the quarterback’s best throw of the game may have came on a 50-plus yard dime to Stefon Diggs down the right sideline that did not count due to an “offensive pass interference penalty.”
Even the next play, Maye again dropped one in the bucket downfield to Mack Hollins on third-and-27 which fell incomplete as the receiver battled through contact. In total, penalties costed the quarterback over 100-plus yards on deep passes.
When the young gunslinger was not throwing bombs downfield, he continued to impress with other areas of his game. Maye continues to make impressive plays off platform and is clearly seeing the field extremely well leading good decisions with the football — which has helped limit the turnovers early in the season.
Against New Orleans, Maye had just one turnover worthy play (an incompletion to Douglas on the left sideline) and ranks 10th among all quarterbacks. His current 2.1% turnover-worthy play rate is down from 3.5% from his rookie season, while his work in the pocket with the football has avoided strip sack fumbles that often plagued him as a rookie.
Moving forward, New England is going to need to find answers in the run game to better support their second-year quarterback. But, the QB is making almost every play on the field which has the playoffs appearing to be more-and-more of a realistic opportunity this season.
