How Drake Maye can improve in Year 3 – NBC Sports Boston

Editor’s Note: With the beginning of NFL free agency looming on March 11, our Patriots Insider Tom E. Curran is resetting each Patriots position by assessing their 2025 performance, laying out their 2026 contract statuses, and ranking their offseason priority on a scale of 1 to 5 when it comes to potential upgrades. First up: Quarterback.

Two seasons ago, the Patriots had eight (EIGHT!!!!) quarterbacks cycle through their roster. For the record, they were Mac Jones, Bailey Zappe, Malik Cunningham, Trace McSorley, Matt Corral, Will Grier, Ian Book and Nathan Rourke.

Now, they have a franchise quarterback on his rookie deal who’s played in a Super Bowl, was the thinking man’s choice for NFL MVP (runner-up in reality), and has plenty of room for improvement with a genius offensive coordinator in his hip pocket.

It’s arguably the best QB situation in the league. And Drake Maye won’t be 24 until August 30.  

It’s kinda fun to look back at what I wrote in this space last year. For me, at least.

When you pick the right year to really, really suck in the NFL, you get a shot at bagging the rarest of finds: a true franchise quarterback.

Not a knock-off franchise guy. Not a “he can be good if we get people around him…” quarterback like Tua or Brock Purdy or Mac Jones. We’re talking a one-man gang. A rising-tide-that-lifts-all-teammates kind of player.

The Patriots picked the right year. And they picked the right guy for a miserable situation in Maye. Some have said a potted plant couldn’t have screwed up that third pick. Maye was the only choice. I thought otherwise. I lobbied for trade down, add picks, collect talent. I don’t think I was wrong, necessarily. The Patriots remain among the worst rosters in the league and Maye will die on the vine if they don’t get him some talent.

But I will say that the mere presence of a possible superstar puts a buff-and-shine on an otherwise miserable team and puts a hop in the step in a way that a pretty good QB prospect and a real good offensive lineman probably wouldn’t.

The right blend of arm strength, mobility, poise and mental toughness is a must. Can whoever they bring in — veteran placeholder or first-rounder — withstand the inevitable adversity at that spot? Which is why — when debating whether or not to go quarterback at No. 3 — the Patriots need to be damn sure the kid can deal with pressure, criticism and physical abuse that await him in New England.

These were the bright spots I highlighted after Maye’s rookie season:

Drastic offseason improvement. On-field intelligence running the offense. Arm strength and downfield accuracy. Extreme decisiveness – if he was running, he took off; if he was throwing, he ripped it. Mental toughness exhibited in a bleak season. Physical toughness shown after taking a pounding and a willingness to hang in there or fight for extra.

Leadership on-field and in media appearances. The appearance that he wants to take ownership of being a Patriot. He’s not looking for the exit.

I said it during the season, I’ll write it once more here: I’ve never seen a player flip a switch as emphatically as Maye did after the turnover-carnival that was the Week 3 loss to Pittsburgh. He had a red-zone interception, then a strip-sack fumble on the Steelers’ 33 with 7:49 remaining in a tie game.

He took 12 sacks in the first three weeks. The Patriots were 1-2. The Week 1 loss to the Raiders also featured a WTF pick. He threw picks to begin and end an intrasquad scrimmage and had a WTF fumble in the preseason opener against the Vikings. It seemed his ability to exorcise back-breaking plays was coming along slowwwwwwly.

Then he flipped. He didn’t throw a pick for the next three games and his passer rating over the next six games was 128 with 12 touchdowns and two picks. He led the team to a stirring, “HERE WE ARE!!!” win at Buffalo and led the team to three straight wins on the road. They finished 9-0 on the road for the season.

He was the best downfield thrower in the league. He was absurd on third-and-10-plus. And he was doing it all with a highly-motivated, gritty, glue-fingered collection of pass-catchers who — objectively speaking — were not the envy of the league.

It was a remarkable, never-to-be-forgotten season regardless of how it ended or the much-discussed strength of schedule.   

Since this is about the position as a whole, backup Joshua Dobbs seemed fine. Did his job. And the Patriots certainly didn’t RUE THEY DAY!!!! they dealt away Joe Milton. Based on his comments at the Super Bowl, the gentleman was not going to be a contented clipboard carrier for the foreseeable future.

Bright spots

Everyone rightly expected improvement from Maye. Beyond the second-year jump, there was vastly improved infrastructure around him and URGENCY. Best of all, the boy wasn’t mollycoddled by Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels as they went for full immersion in the offense while Vrabel constantly prodded Maye to be a leader and a quarterback.

The bar was set so high. Maye took to it. He went from a 66.6 percent passer to a league-leading 72 percent. His interception rate went from 3.0 to 1.6. He went from 6.7 yards per attempt to a league-leading 8.9, and his QBR and passer ratings went from 55.2 and 88.1 to 77.1 and 113.6, respectively. Both led the league.

Phil Perry reacts to Drake Maye’s end-of-season press conference on a new episode of the Patriots Talk Podcast

We could go on and on with CPOE and other stats proving he not only had the most impressive season of any quarterback but also made these gargantuan leaps with a pedestrian cast. But we’ve all said it before.

If you narrow it to attributes, I’d say his decision-making (willingness to throw it away, take the sack, push the ball, etc.) was tremendous in the regular season. His week-to-week leadership and growth was also remarkable.

He came to the team as someone respectful of the process and was deferential to Jacoby Brissett until told to take the damn job. Which he eventually did. This season, Vrabel led Maye to the leadership trough and Maye drank.  

Last thing: The fundamentals and accuracy — which did lag quite a bit in the playoffs — were so far improved from the kid who was throwing for scouts two years ago, it’s silly.

Disappointments

Ball security. Too many sacks. The personal panic button, which remained untouched for so many weeks, got slammed a few times in the playoffs.

Maye’s playoff passing drop-off — which was mitigated a great deal by his running — couldn’t be overcome in the Super Bowl.

When defenses and pass rushes improve, simple logic dictates it’s going to get harder. But the postseason really shined a light on where Maye needs to improve individually, and where the Patriots need to improve as a whole.

Maye actually improved his ball-handling a lot in the regular season. He had eight fumbles in 12 starts in ’24 compared to nine in 17 starts in ‘25.

But he had seven in four postseason games. He also took 47 regular-season sacks and an absurd 21 sacks in the postseason (14.89 sack percentage after an 8.72 number during the season).

Maye took 96 percent of the snaps, so the numbers on Joshua Dobbs are minimal. He was 7-for-10 for 65 yards in his 30-year-old season.

Contract statuses

Maye’s base salary is $1.075 million, his prorated signing bonus is $5.87 million and he gets a $3.05 million roster bonus as well, so his cap hit is $9.99 million. If the Patriots release him, they’ll take a cap hit of $21.65 million, so it wouldn’t be good financial sense to release him. Just keeping you on your toes.

OvertheCap.com does contract valuations, which project what financial level a player performed at. Maye’s 2025 valuation was $44.849 million. WHAT A BARGAIN!

Dobbs is under contract for $3.2 million and has a per-game roster bonus of $425,000. His cap hit is $4.75 million.