INSTANT REACTION: Maye, Boutte DELIVER in Patriots third straight win

INSTANT REACTION: Maye, Boutte DELIVER in Patriots third straight win

Welcome to Postgame Live. The Patriots beat the New Orleans Saints 25-19. Second straight win on the road. Third straight win overall. Look at this. Your New England Patriots are 4 and2 on the season. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but going into a game in Nashville next week against the pretty awful Tennessee Titans. First things first, Patriots win here and we’ve got a great show lined up here. We got some fantastic experts lined up to talk about it. We got Phil Perry, we got Tommy Curran, three-time Super Bowl champion Ted Johnson. I’m Michael Holly. Lots to take away from this entertaining game, which looked like it was going to be a shootout in the first half. Oh man, it might be 40 to 37. It might be 44 to 38. Slow down in the second half. What’s your biggest takeaway, Phil Perry? Well, to me it’s the quarterback again and he leads you to this victory and he does so by targeting people not named Stefon Diggs. Stefan Diggs lights it up for two weeks in a row. 200 plus yard football games, two wins. Third week it’s the Kahan Booty show and he goes to him twice, not only for scores, Tom, but twice at the end of the game when they needed to milk the clock. Two first downs to Kahan Booty. He wisely, I’m not sure he did it intentionally on the second one, but on the first one, he wisely stayed in bounds. Stayed inbounds. Great challenge by Mike Vrabel on the second one. They run clock and they win the game. Drake May is not reliant upon one or two particular receivers. He’ll throw to the open guy. Today was Kahan Booty. And the nature of those booty catches to me, he’s got zero separation. He is a good win at the catch point guy. And you have that and you also kind of have it with Diggs who didn’t get a lot of separation, but his three catches for 28 yards were big high leverage catches that they needed from him, especially at the end of the first half. You got a couple from uh Deario Douglas. But to me, if you’re looking at some of these, if Drake May is in a position where he has to make high leverage throws into tight spots, he’s not doing the things that we were concerned about a month ago, two weeks ago, definitely two months ago about pat pat. Is he sure? He is just cockshore certain that it’s going in there. No, no doubt, guys. I mean, I think the the guys are absolutely right. I think that the story is is Drake May. He was brilliant, particularly in that first half. I mean, it was incredible how just pinpoint he was this to start this game and even in the second half, you know, there’s there is a butt for me and it there is some concerns I do have. I mean, how they kind of fumbled that fourth down play with the the decision-m there. They’ve rushed the ball 31 times for 3.2 yards. the rushing game has no imagination whatsoever. Um, and so that to me is going to be it’s going to hurt them eventually. So, the running game was terrible. No imagination and 11 penalties in this game. Um, so it’s it’s still a it was a great performance by by Drake May and really a good job by the defense particularly in that second half holding them only to to three points. But, uh, we got to figure this this running game out because Drake May needs some help if he’s going to be the quarterback we all want him to be. Yeah, Teddy. 22 for 46 when you take out the the Drake May scramble. So 22 for 46 from your backs and we talked a little bit this week about style points and whether the Patriots could win and did they need style points. This is more like what I think folks might need to get accustomed to is you’re going to have some explosive times but then there’s going to be grind them out periods because it still is a developing team. They’re winning games and this I think goes into the bucket in a different bucket than the Buffalo win, a different bucket than the Carolina win. go on the road, you’re getting some ass calls from the officials to put you in positions. You had a 51 yard reception from Diggs wiped out. You had a touchdown that you eventually got back anyway on the Demario Douglas one, but good resourceful win. Not clean enough to walk away and say, but really good resilience, I think. Does it say anything, Phil, that the Patriots, I think we we we we didn’t get to this in pregame, but 27 of 29 people pulled picked the Patriots uh over the Saints. And the two people who picked the Saints, uh they’re from New Orleans now, but but really, I mean, like most people expected the Patriots to win the game. And even though it wasn’t an artistic ma masterpiece, is it progress that you go into a game saying the Patriots should win that game and the Patriots do win that game? Like we haven’t been here in a long time where oh expect it to win and you actually carry it through. No question about it because this this is still an NFL team. The New Orleans Saints they’re coming off beating an NFL team. If you were to lose it, if you were to screw it up, Yeah. you could have easily lost this game. You got no picks from your quarterback and you had no fumbles offensively. So when you play that style, it wasn’t picture perfect. It was not an artistic performance by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn’t screw it up. And that to me is progress. Coming off the win that you just had. Would have been easy for them to rest on their laurels. Say it’s a one- win team. Who cares? We’re going on the road. We’ll have some fun down in the bayou. We’ll go win a football game. We’ll come back home, play another crap team next week in Tennessee. They didn’t do that. It was a tougher game than I think a lot of people anticipated. And the fact they’re able to win it, Ted, to me is a sign of real growth. I agree. I agree. Look, I mean, they the the Saints have played tough at home. They they had game-winning drives at the end of the games to to to win the game in the last two games that they’ve lost at home. And so it was kind of the same thing here. So this, you know, Spencer Rattler, I think, is a better quarterback than maybe we all we all thought. I mean, he was uh pretty pretty accurate in what he what he was doing there, particularly to uh to Chris Olive. So um look, that’s uh that’s not the the easiest team. They got big names on defense as we saw. So I mean, they got three in a row. When’s the last time? Three in a row since the first time since 2022. So they’re learning how to win. And uh you know what? I love the fast start. I mean, they came out and just were on fire on both sides and and that’s that made me feel like, okay, they they’re ready to go for this game. Michael, I don’t know if you guys are ready for this. Are you ready? Uh oh. Here we go. Are you ready for some Are you ready for a hot take? Is this a hot Tell me if this is a hot take cuz I got plenty of papers here. If it’s hot, if it’s hot. You said three wins in a row. Patriots are four and two. Drake May has looked really good. May really all season. Is it too early to start talking about Drake May as MVP? Drake May, is he in the MVP conversation? Tommy Curran. Drake May based on what you’ve seen the last Woo. See, I’m I was about to fall out of my seat. Take so everybody’s falling off. This seat I will fall off this thing. Melted that chair. Hey, stay tuned because I will fall off this. It’s going to be some great TV. Uh I I’ll fall off this before the show’s over. 4-2 MVP Drake May. Oh, he’s he is in the conversation as is Daniel Jones, as is Dak Prescott. I mean, it’s kind of a void there because Josh Allen right now coming off a prime time game last week where he was outdooled to an extent by May. Not a better player yet, but out outdooled in that prime time game. Um Lamar Jackson’s down. Patrick Mahomes is not what Patrick Mahomes is. He’s competing with Daniel Jones and Dak Prescott, as I said. Um Trevor Lawrence, who you might have thrown into the conversation, or Jared Goff would be a guy in the conversation. All quarterbacks are in the conversation and the quarterback of the team that has improved the most in 2025 and is putting up numbers that actually buttress his case certainly belongs in a conversation. He’s in the conversation because he’s a top seven or eight quarterback right now. So all those guys are in the convers I’ll throw Baker Mayfield. Let’s throw in conversation as well. But how many names is that? So to me the fact that there are that many names tells us it’s probably a little too early. But the fact that we’re even talking about him in these terms where we’re talking about yet another game again they’ve got four wins this year. Drake May played four really clean no turnover football games and they’ve won them all. So eventually he’ll screw it up and they’ll have to you know they’ll have to win in spite of him at some point like you if you want to be a good team at least that’s what you have to do. But so far Ted he plays clean they do well. It’s a pretty simple equation. Absolutely Phil and it’s I think it’s a fun question and I think absolutely yes. I think he can be he’s in the conversation like Tom said it’s still a long ways to go. Uh but the way he plays the game is is in such a it’s he makes the position like playing the position and this is what I’ve always said this about like guys that are there’s they’re all pro we’re all pros out there but then the guys that perform at a level above the rest of the pros that make the game it’s almost like they it’s like easy like Terry Glenn I watch him run routes and I go it’s not even like he’s trying and he’s just going right by everybody. Drake May plays the quarterback position like with ease. It doesn’t look like it’s a struggle for him. And we’ve seen some quarterbacks here recently where it looked Yeah, we’ve seen some quarterbacks here recently like Drake May probably like week one that’s go back to week one saying, “Oh, he’s too hyped up before the game.” He really I I’ll give him credit. I’m not saying it like oh, you know, to criticize him. There’s been growth there from Drake May that we’ve seen this season, week one against the Raiders. was way too hyped up at the beginning of the game and then Steelers game, the two turnovers, the the red zone interception. Yep. And then the the fumble in the middle of the field. That seems like that was this year. It seems like it was a couple of years ago. It really does. Well, he said he look we had Brian Hoyer on on our Efter afternoon show and he said like he what he saw from from Drake May last week. It was like he accelerated his progression in three years in just in the last three weeks. And that’s what you see. you’re seeing kind of like him learning from his mistakes. He’s protecting the ball. He He looks more comfortable running out in the open field. You feel like you can trust him. He’s not going to be loose with the ball. Uh he he’s just improving on so many things compared to where he was just like you guys are saying even three weeks ago. And that’s what’s the amazing thing to watch. I think the definition of confidence, at least if I remember Bill Parcels, the way he defined it was it’s the demonstrated ability to perform a task. will give you confidence and he has demonstrated ability to take care of the ball to make tight throws to run with the ball to be responsible in the pocket. So the confidence grows from that. I want to go a little bit more 30,000 ft. When you look around the NFL and people are going to quibble with this win. If you look around the NFL, Dolphins blow it late against the Chargers. Chargers aren’t a great team. Jaguars lose. That’s a 4 inone team that loses. Colts are nip and tuck with not a great Cardinals team. Panthers, the Patriots beat them. They went and beat a a decent Cowboys team. Ravens lose by 14. Broncos barely get past the Jets. Obviously, the Eagles got smoked by the by the Giants. If you look at just the landscape of the league right now, Phil, um, this is an odd year that’s developing and that’s probably going to contribute a bit to the rise of the Patriots and it’s more wide open in the AFC than we would have assumed, right? Lamar Jackson’s injury seeming, you know, might have might just take the Ravens out of the thing entirely here. It sounds like he’s sounds like he’s expected to be back after week seven. So, we’ll see if they can rattle off a bunch of wins here. But Joe Burrow’s injury takes the Bengals out of the picture. So, now you’ve got two teams that a lot of people assumed would be at least in the running to make the Super Bowl from the AFC and their afterthoughts now. So, there there is a vacuum there that the Patriots might be able to occupy. And you got you got you got a team, excuse me, real quick in the Patriots that the people just I mean the the the National Pundits loved what they saw from them last week, right? And so there’s going to be a huge spotlight on this team and they the basically after this game, I think people are going to start looking at them as as one of the better teams in the AFC and and and it feels like a foregone conclusion that they should make the playoffs obviously. So it’s going to be from a psychological standpoint interesting. Do they handle can they handle being the hunted as opposed to being the hunter? There’s there is a difference in that and they were the hunter for the first, you know, few games and now after the last two they’re going to be the considered the hunted because a lot of people are going to get on the Patriots bandwagon based off of what they saw last week against the Bills and then validating that win last week against the Bills with a win today. Okay, so let’s say you can’t sneak up on anybody anymore if you’re the Patriots. Uh let’s get ahead of ourselves. Let’s just count that Tennessee win. Count that Tennessee win. I know it’s dangerous. We’re not playing the game. We’re not in the building. Fine. We’re not in the facility. So, listen. Uh, do your job and and ignore the noise, all that stuff. No, no, no. So, let’s say let’s make them five and two. We were just talking about Drake May and being an MVP candidate. So, if he’s an MVP candidate, he’s got people’s attention. If they’re five and two, they have people’s attention. And Tom, this is back to your point about the running game we made a few minutes ago. If you’ve got Drake May and he’s the offense and you’re not sneaking up on anybody, eventually teams say, “Okay, wait a minute. We’re going to take this guy out of the game.” Are we at that point where can you think he can handle it? Can he handle it? That he is the he is going to be looked at as the Patriots offense, not oh play action. No, we’re not worried about Raandre. Hadn’t proven it to us. Gibson out for the year. The rookie hasn’t proven it to us. We’re taking away Drake May. Damn it. Teddy keeps pointing at me and I think it’s because we were on WEI earlier today. Go. And in speaking about it, I don’t think it’s really easy to crack the code on Drake May because he is running it well. He’s making excellent decisions. He’s accurate against zone. Phil can help me out on some of his performance right now. He’s performing a lot against single high safety, which means they’re already rotating somebody down and he’s having success. He’s having success against the Blitz. What do you do with Frank May? I’m going to let these guys who are more in the X’s and O’s than me cuz I think he’s a puzzle right now. He He’s second in the league coming into this game today terms of EPA against single high safety coverages. So Tom’s right. They’re dropping opposing defensive coordinators dropping an extra safety into the box. It’s helping make the Patriots run game as meager as it’s been in terms of its efficiency. The solution might be all right that safety that we had in the box playing the run. We’re gonna get him out of there and we’re gonna play him in the deep part of the field because this quarterback’s just chucking it all over the lot to these receivers we’ve never heard of before and he’s killing teams week after week after week. Now, that might open it up for the run game. Ted, it was pathetic. Quite frankly, it was pathetic again today. Running back runs 22 carries for 45 yards. That’s two I’m rounding up. Rounding up, it’s 2.05 yards per carry. Yeah, it’s it’s horrible. And Josh McDaniels, I don’t know what you do to try to figure it out. Maybe you got to get a little more creative, Ted, but that might be the solution is fewer single high safety coverages, more two high stuff against the Patriots. Yeah, that would be great. Uh, can we What’s Greg Roman doing? Is he because we he can really dial up a run game. We need a more creative We need a creative run game from uh from because Drake, but to but to Tom’s point, exactly right. This morning we were talking about this and it’s a good I mean defenses are trying everything they can to try and stop them. I mean, you saw the Buffalo Bills, you they only blissed them a couple times in the first half last week. They were like, “We’re going to dial up the blitzes on him in the in the third quarter.” Oh, they dialed him up and he went six for seven for 92 yards. So, he had as an answer for everything so far that you’re throwing at him. A lot of teams are terrified to play him in manto man because of his running ability. So, that opens some things up for the receivers uh on the outside. And that’s it’s it’s not an easy it’s not an easy assignment to try and figure out how to stop Drake. He seems to be breaking the code like Tom said. Whatever you throw at him. Presented by Gem Plumbing and Heating. 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Phil Perry, Tom E. Curran, Ted Johnson, and Michael Holley share their instant reactions to the Patriots’ 25-19 win over the Saints. They talk big games from Drake Maye and Kayshon Boutte, New England’a run game, and whether Maye’s making a case for MVP.

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