Patriots-Eagles storylines to watch: More reps for Drake Maye?

Patriots-Eagles storylines to watch: More reps for Drake Maye? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The primary thing you, me and all the football-caring people across this great land wanted to see last week was a decent dose of Drake Maye.

Not unreasonable. We spent the first four months of the year delving into the merits of drafting him and spent the last four months monitoring his progress.

Yet when the team got a chance to unveil him to the thirsty masses who just watched two seasons of the most foul quarterback play in 50 seasons of Patriots football, you give him three throws and six snaps.

Read. The. Motherscratching. Room.

So, in discussing the five things we wanna see in Thursday’s preseason affair with the Eagles, let’s try this again.

Long Maye he run

All indications are that the Patriots will use Maye for a big chunk of this game. Good. What would we like to see?

• High competency in and out of the huddle and at the line of scrimmage when he’s with the starting offensive line.

• Decisiveness in moving through reads, as opposed to the lingering gazes and half-pumps he sometimes gives when unsure whether his first read is open. If it’s there, rip it. If not, get the hell off.

• Willingness to make aggression-based mistakes.

Support for the kid

The main reason Maye didn’t play much last week was the team didn’t feel great about trotting him out there behind the backup offensive line. They didn’t want him wandering into traffic and getting smushed. Further, if he was out there running around trying to make off-script plays and not having time to work on fundamentals, what’s the use?

Which, even with a week’s separation, seems just as stupid now as it was then.

First off, if you draft a project at No. 3 overall, you can’t be afraid to use him. Especially when the GM smirked in April when he was asked if the roster was sufficient to support a developing quarterback.

Eliot Wolf said he didn’t understand what that meant. It means the team’s not good enough on offense to give the player the reps necessary to develop him.

In short, last Thursday.

Second, game it up. If you don’t want him taking a seven-step drop, go quick game, draws, screens, whatever. Just put the kid on the field against the horrible competition that Carolina offered.

Now, of course, the Patriots are going to play Maye more against much stiffer competition from the Eagles defense. It’s the right thing to do, of course. They shouldn’t even think twice. And if it weren’t for the overly cautious approach applied last week, nobody would.

But now that they set that precedent last week, they damn well better give Maye all the protection he needs to return safely to his little quarterbacking chrysalis at the end of the night.

Run it back

I wanted to see the Patriots run for 4.0 yards per carry last week. They ran for 3.8 on 30 carries. FINE. Good enough. Except their main backs in the game – Kevin Harris and Antonio Gibson – carried 12 times for 26 times between them.

The Patriots desperately need to run the ball effectively to achieve any offensive potency. Alex Van Pelt’s offense is predicated on being so effective on the ground that defenses have to creep linebackers up and maybe even rotate a safety into the box.

Achieve that, and you get more room for receivers to operate in the passing game. Simple. But if it’s so leaky along the offensive line that Van Pelt finds himself in second-and-7 or worse more than half the time, the whole thing goes kablooey.

The joint practice this week was embarrassing for the Patriots offensive line. But after spending an offseason, passing camp, minicamp, the start of training camp and an untold number of meetings in trying to develop this curriculum, you can’t just say, “Damn. Didn’t work. Let’s try something else.”

The Patriots are off the dock and out in the harbor. Open sea looms. You can’t just paddle back for provisions now!

An effective pass rush

Matthew Judon’s a good player. Pro Bowl-level pass rusher. A guy offensive coordinators had to game plan for and the kind of threat that makes secondaries better because the ball has to come out quickly. But he missed 13 games last season and the defense was still pretty flippin’ tough to deal with.

So my reaction to Judon being dealt to Atlanta is: Too bad they couldn’t work something out.

A third-round return is surprisingly good. It’s not like they didn’t play without him before. They better spend the friggin’ money they saved on him, Calvin Ridley and Brandon Aiyuk as aggressively as possible next year in free agency on a left tackle, wideout or edge rusher similar to Judon.

Meanwhile, the Patriots defense actually had a nice day against the Eagles offense overall in Tuesday’s joint practice. After last week’s dominant performance against not-very-good Carolina, the challenge Thursday night will be much stiffer.

Josh Uche, who re-signed in the offseason, is their most potent remaining pass-rusher. He’s undersized compared to Judon but has more speed and suddenness. It will be interesting to see if the team tries to take advantage of his unique style in a way it didn’t last season.

Limiting the Philly wideouts

A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are among the league’s best wideout tandems. It’s a great challenge for the entire Patriots secondary — especially cornerbacks Christian Gonzalez and Marco Wilson (who seems to be tracking at the No. 1 corner opposite Gonzalez) for as long as Brown and Smith are out there.