Drake Maye goes through rookie moment on doomed fumble TD
Maye shares responsibility for the fumble that turned into a Bills touchdown in Sunday's loss, according to Brian Hoyer.
Drake Maye has been very good as a rookie, but the young QB still has a thing or two to learn.
Take the disastrous backward pass that turned into a game-clinching touchdown for the Bills in Sunday’s frustrating loss to Buffalo, for instance.
Fans immediately expressed irritation with the play call itself, with the Patriots backed up near their own end zone and facing heavy pressure all evening, though the goal of that play was to keep things safe and simple. Many will also point out that the play is essentially dead on arrival because of right tackle Demontrey Jacobs’ missed block and Rhamondre Stevenson not catching the football.
But ex-Patriots QB Brian Hoyer said the play call or execution by other parties wasn’t the main problem with the play: it was on Maye.
“That’s not coaching,” Hoyer said on “The Quick Snap” podcast. “If anything, that’s Drake.”
Though he acknowledged the blocking breakdown that led to busted play, Hoyer said Maye needed to see it and not put the ball in harm’s way.
“We ran the same play [under Josh McDaniels],” he said. “As a quarterback, when you see that and you see that even if you do complete the pass and … Rhamondre’s going to get drilled, you just throw it at his feet and you move on to the next play.
Josh would always tell us quarterbacks, ‘Don’t make a bad play worse.’ That’s the quarterback’s responsibility. And Drake, I’ve really come to admire the way a 22-year-old face of the franchise sits up there and takes the accountability for it.”
“I thought he did a great job at his press conference,” David Andrews echoed on the show.
That’s a tough ask for a young QB who’s simply trying to execute a play as it’s called. But as we saw on Sunday, those sorts of mistakes can mean the difference between a win and a loss. The Patriots, of course, have made those miscues all season, which is why they’re 3-12 with two games left. But many of those gut-wrenching gaffes have been a result of what’s going on around Maye, not Maye himself.
Still, this experience can be a valuable lesson for the dynamic young passer: sometimes, the plays you don’t make matter just as much as the ones you do.
Maye for his part hasn’t shied away from self-criticism even as he garners praise from every corner both for his play and his bearing as a franchise QB. In this case, mistakes are just another opportunity to improve.
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