Drake Maye looking forward to running Tom Brady’s offense with Josh McDaniels
"Looking forward to running the offense that Tom Brady did.”
Drake Maye is set to have a new offensive coordinator in Foxborough for his second NFL season.
The firing of Jerod Mayo has led to a complete overhaul of New England’s coaching staff, with Josh McDaniels brought in for his third tenure as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator.
Even though Maye made some significant strides in his development under OC Alex Van Pelt in 2024, McDaniels’ resume does speak for itself.
While McDaniels’ two stints as a head coach in the NFL left a lot to be desired, he achieved plenty of success in New England — winning six Super Bowl titles as a member of Bill Belichick’s staff.
The offense that McDaniels implemented in New England during Tom Brady’s days in Foxborough stands as a sizable departure from the West Coast offense that Van Pelt mapped out for Maye in 2024.
But even with those expected changes to New England’s offense in 2025, Maye told NBC Sports Boston’s Phil Perry at Super Bowl LIX that he’s excited to work with McDaniels moving forward.
“I think I’m a bright kid. I don’t think it’ll be too challenging,” Maye told Perry in New Orleans. “But it’s a new offense. You’ve gotta do it. They don’t give you too much time to work with coaches during this time period. You’ve gotta have time off (due to the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement).
“Fortunately, you’ve got the whole library from years ago, back when the greatest to ever do it did it in the same offense. What a guy to watch film on, and Coach McDaniels has been one of the best in the business as a coordinator. Looking forward to running the offense that Tom Brady did.”
Maye added that he already has some familiarity with the Patriots’ older offensive schemes during the Brady era, noting that he used to watch film of Brady during his rookie season with New England.
“I found myself last season seeing, ‘Hey, what did Tom Brady look like in 7-on-7?’ Or, ‘ What did Tom Brady look like in quarterback individual (drills)?‘” Maye said. So you find yourself flipping through the database and pulling up Tom.
“What a cool thing to have film on Tom back in the day. So I found (film of) him throwing to Rob Gronkowski in 7-on-7. It’s pretty cool.”
Even though McDaniels achieved plenty of success working with Brady in Foxborough, he also showcased an ability to tailor the Patriots’ offense to each QB who took snaps with New England.
During Cam Newton’s lone season as the team’s starting QB in 2020, McDaniels dialed up plenty of RPO (run-pass options) to complement the mobile signal-caller — but later added many crossers and short-yardage throws for Mac Jones in 2021.
With Maye now running the offense, McDaniels will likely reshuffle his schemes to make the most of the second-year QB’s talents — especially when it comes to adding more designed runs into the Patriots’ playbook.
“There’s been some growth from the offense over the years, and (McDaniels) has blended that with some of the new trends,” Mike Vrabel told Patriots.com about McDaniels’ influence moving forward. “But the foundation will remain the same. I’m excited about adding some of those new trends. … “We’re gonna want to do things that maybe they didn’t do with the previous quarterbacks here.”
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