The Patriots Are Back: Drake Maye’s Rise & Mike Vrabel’s Impact 👀

The Patriots Are Back: Drake Maye’s Rise & Mike Vrabel’s Impact 👀

The New England Patriots are back. Chris Hassel, Kyle Long, Terron Armstead. Uh Patriots would be the two seed in the AFC right now. Huge game this week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It’s on CBS 1:00 Eastern time. Where do you start with the Patriots? Do you start with Drake May who’s right there in the MVP running and and maybe the next Tom Brady there in New England, or do you start with Mike Vrabel, the first year head coach, returning home to lead that team? I struggle to talk about the Patriots because they are good and I hate to say it. I do. I They have built something there that is is looking to be it looks to be sustainable. Drake May is He’s real. He’s the real thing. Mike Vrabel, he’s proven. He knows how to lead. He brings a culture. He brings an identity. They’re sure about themselves. Stefon Diggs, his resurgence, coming back from injury, young guys stepping up like they are real. And looking at their schedule, they do have a tough one against Tampa, which I would like to see Tampa. That might be the game of the week. That might be the game of the week. But the rest of their schedule, man, is is wide open for them to lead and and take the AFC East. They are already a game up on the Buffalo Bills. The Bills are now finding themselves again. Big win against the Chiefs. So, the Bills are going to circle this game December 14th to see if they can take over the AFC East again uh yet another year. But the Patriots are they’re the they’re the real thing, man. They’re built the right way. Put a lot of investment into the O line and Dline. The the culture that they have now with Mike Vreyel. They play very physical style of football. They uh it pains me to say. Why does it pain you so much? I’m a dolphin. Yeah, I’m a dolphin, bro. Come on. I know. It’s only been a year talking Packers, man. Yeah. Well, I heard you both say off air that you would love to play for Mike Verable. Why is that? I mean, why wouldn’t you want to play for a guy that did it at the highest level, was a champion, was a guy that was so trusted by his coaching staff, not only just any coaching staff, maybe the best staff that ever was. And Bill Bich, he was he was able to play both sides of the ball. They threw him the football a lot. So when you’re when you’re in these locker rooms and there’s guys who are picked to do those special operations as I call it, like we gave Khalil Mack the football in 2018 and like you it takes a special individual to be able to come to the offensive meeting, get the trust of the coaches. I mean people’s livelihoods are on the line. Frabel’s one of those guys and now he gets to lead men and I think that’s special. But if I’m going to do the answer the question that you asked him, it starts with Drake May. There is zero substitute for being playing within the system. There is zero zero substitute at the quarterback position for accuracy and making the right decisions. This young man, his completion percentage is so astronomically high. It is the best in NFL history. I think he’s tied with Drew Brees maybe through his first nine games as a starter. Um, you and I can attest when the ball’s out on time, it’s going to the right guy, and it’s placed accurately, there is nothing the defense can do. We’ve got answers is the phrase that our coaches used to say all the time in offensive meeting rooms. And it feels like Drake May is doing the open book test style playing football on Sunday. And oh yeah, he can also hit theole shots and throw it over the top and he can let it rip in between tight windows. The guy’s special. It’s a quarterback driven league. And now that we’ve seen him play the way he has nine weeks in, it’s no surprise the New England Patriots are where they’re at. You played with Drew Brees when he was putting up those ridiculous completion percentage numbers. Now you comparing those quarterbacks sounds silly. I mean, they’re two totally different. They’re about a foot apart. Yeah. But do you see similarities in them having played with Drew Brees for so long? I see I see similarities in his decisiveness, how how he’s able to to assess the defense and and figure out exactly where he’s going pre- snap. Because when you when you’re talking completion percentages that high, you you’re not waiting for things to develop. Like you can already you have foresight. You have to because of so many disguises now in the league and the way that these gaps close, these windows close. See linebackers running 4-3. Like these windows close extremely fast. So he already has his plan in place, walking them to the line. The offensive coordinator, they’re doing a great job of giving him information. Small, simple motions. Oh, wait. This guy, he’s following him. All right, it’s man coverage. I’m going here. You know what I mean? So, he’s doing a great job in his early career to be able to diagnose and execute. It’s impressive. It’s impressive. I just hate to say it. You know what I think uh is a big reason for why he is so in control is because he’s never really had great offensive line play. And even going back to his days at Carolina, he was kind of running for his life a little bit relative to some of these guys from, let’s call them Georgees or Alabama or LSUs where it’s a bunch of guys like you and me playing and blocking for these guys. I mean, you could play quarterback, Chris. Let’s be honest, you go out there and have a couple thousand yards. Uh, but Drake May has had to be damn near perfect pre- snap and postnap his entire career. And now he’s paired with Josh McDaniels, and I feel like they have a real special chemistry there. We We’ve seen recently a couple of guys that are going to go in the Hall of Fame, win an MVP in their first two years. Patrick Mahomes did it, Lamar Jackson did it, but those are the only two guys that have done it in the last 25 years. How does Drake May continue this progression and potentially become the third to do this? He’s in he’s he’s starting to enter the conversation. He didn’t have I can’t say that we started the preseason off with with this expectation that the Patriots will be here right now sitting at 7 and2. So it’s a little bit of a surprise. So now we got to we got to kind of peel back that part of it first. The surprise that the Patriots are where they are. So now is is it’s is real. Tampa, it’s a real test. Let’s see it. Let’s see it. And MVP goes down to numbers as well. Like he’s he’s playing extremely efficient. He’s not lighting up the scoreboard as much. So, if he can start to stack up some multiple touchdown games, then he will start to get more into that discussion. The thing about Drake May is his ability as a runner is incredible. That that is that’s the separating factor. As laser sharp as Drew Brees was, as surgical as he was knifing up a defense with his arm and his brain, he wasn’t the runner. Drake May is is showing that type of precision and decision-m from a pocket presence, but his ability to extend plays and create problems as a runner, that’s what makes him different. If Drake May is going to win the MVP, it will have to be as a result of sweeping Buffalo this season and getting at the bare minimum one playoff win. If Drake May can pull that off with the quick turnover in New England, I think he could be the MVP at the NFL honors. When you look at the the Patriots schedule, I mean, when you’re last place, you get an easier schedule. They’ve had quote unquote the easiest on paper to this point. They do have the win over Buffalo and they have the easiest moving forward. you were on some Dolphins teams. It was like, “Yeah, you can beat up on all these teams either at your weight or below, but you maybe not necessarily can you take down the behemoths.” What What gives you reason to believe that this Patriots team can do something like that, can sweep the Bills, can win a playoff game? The thing The thing about it, man, I I’ve never been a guy that goes into strength of schedule or you play who’s on their schedule. You play and it’s it’s an NFL team. Like I’ve never been a guy that just it doesn’t matter as much. You saw the Panthers go in to to Green Bay and win as a two touchdown dog last week. Yeah. Listen, that’s what I mean. It’s any given Sunday. We say that for a reason. In this league, every team is talented. Every team is capable. So the Patriots schedule is favorable for sure. You know what I mean? They going to this this Bucks game is huge. Then you got the Jets, Bengals, Giants. That is you. We expect them to go three and 0 on that run. Bills, Ravens, Jets in with the Dolphins. They’re going to lose to the Dolphins. Hell yeah. I’m holding on to that. But no, but no, seriously, that the Bucks game, the Bills games, the Ravens game that it gives them that rehearsal for playoffs. Like they do have playoff dreams, aspirations. They they feel that they are going there. So these top teams, it gives you a chance to really test your might to see exactly what you have moving forward. And it’s all this that’s all this is what the season is is dress rehearsal. You you keep fine-tuning for January and February football. Yep. It all starts this week in I mean I get it could be a Super Bowl. This game’s gonna be awesome. The Bucks are getting healthy. Bucks are getting healthy. Bucks fans are pissed because Pats fans are saying Drake May MVP. Pats fans are saying or you know Baker’s going to have his guy back. They’re both top five coming back. The right tackle. So you’re going to get to look at the Bucks you know what their offense is supposed to look like here. They play with backups for a large part of the season. We got our a crew there. Uh Tony Romo, Tony and Jim Nance in the booth. 1:00 Eastern time on CBS. The Patriots and the Bucks.

Kyle Long and Terron Armstead join CBS Sports HQ to break down the 2025 season for the New England Patriots.

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