FOXBORO — Patriots quarterback Drake Maye isn’t just being nice to the guys who are protecting him from 300-pound defensive linemen.
Maye said Wednesday that “a lot of the sacks I have taken have been my fault.” And as good as Maye has played, and as much as he’s grown and developed this season, he is right.
The Patriots’ quarterback has been sacked 34 times this season. That’s the second-highest mark in the NFL behind Titans rookie quarterback Cam Ward.
On the surface, that reflects poorly on a Patriots offensive line that was reshaped this offseason by drafting left tackle Will Campbell and left guard Jared Wilson, and signing right tackle Morgan Moses and center Garrett Bradbury to join right guard Mike Onwenu.
But diving deeper, only 11 of those sacks were allowed by Patriots offensive linemen. Campbell has allowed a team-high five sacks, Wilson has let up four sacks, and Onwenu and Moses have each allowed one sack. Bradbury has yet to be responsible for a sack so far this season.
Another two of those sacks were allowed by non-offensive linemen. Tight end Hunter Henry and rookie running back TreVeyon Henderson each allowed sacks in the Patriots’ win over the Dolphins.
Context matters. Four of Maye’s sacks came when he ran out of bounds without getting back to the line of scrimmage. He lost 3 total yards on those plays.
Three more sacks came when Maye was scrambling but didn’t get back to the line of scrimmage before getting tackled. He lost four total yards on those plays.
Eleven more sacks came when Maye either stepped up or ran into sacks before getting to the line of scrimmage. He lost just 29 total yards on those plays.
Maye held the ball for too long on a sack by Steelers pass rusher Nate Herbig in Week 3 and lost 6 yards. He also evaded pressure and ran into a sack for a 3-yard loss in that same game. The final sack unaccounted for came on a busted play against the Dolphins.
So, Maye is ultimately right. He’s having an MVP-level season. He’s been one of the NFL’s most efficient quarterbacks and has shown elite accuracy to all levels of the field and has the athleticism to make plays with his legs. And he’s also inadvertantly making his offensive line look worse than they’ve played.
Maye’s 27.4% pressure-to-sack rate ranks second behind Ward.
He has their backs.
“I think those guys, speaking offensive line, have done a great job all year,” Maye said. “A lot of the sacks I have taken have been my fault from holding the football. Want to credit those guys for what they’ve done in blitz pickup games and how hard they work on watching film and and watching on Thursdays, the third-down cut ups, and what they do, kind of, blitz wise, so that just my mindset of get it out and know that there’s less people covered with their blitzes and and just trying to be better and keep on growing against where guys are coming from and what they’re trying to do behind the blitzes.”
Overall, this season, the 11 sacks the Patriots’ offensive line has allowed ranks 17th lowest in the NFL, but they also haven’t had their bye. They rank 11th in PFF’s pass blocking efficiency metric. ESPN ranks the offensive line 22nd in pass-block win rate.
Regardless of the metric, the Patriots’ offensive line is playing leaps and bounds better than they have in years, thanks to this year’s offseason additions.
The Patriots [allowed six sacks](https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/11/02/best-and-worst-what-we-learned-from-patriots-24-23-win-over-falcons/) in Sunday’s [win over the Falcons](https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/11/02/drake-maye-beating-himself-up-after-patriots-win-despite-turnovers/), but only three of those were on the O-line. Bradbury doesn’t necessarily see it that way.
“It wasn’t our best game. Six sacks. That’s not good enough,” Bradbury said. “And so, yeah, it’s a stat, and it’s not all on the O-line. It’s not all on the quarterback. It’s everyone involved. But that’s too many. And so we get in the film and we figure out where can we have been better? And it is not always on us, but at the end of the day, that number is the number that we had. And so we need to be better for Drake.”
Patriots quarterbacks were sacked 52 times last season for a loss of 348 yards for an average of 6.7 yards per sack. Maye has lost 152 yards on his 34 sacks this season for an average of 4.5 yards per sack.
The Patriots are on pace to allow a franchise-record 64 sacks this season. They’re also on pace to lose 287 yards to sacks. That would rank 11th in team history.
The O-line is on pace to allow just 21 sacks. PFF started tracking sacks allowed by the offensive line in 2006. Twenty-one sacks would rank eighth-lowest allowed by a Patriots offensive line in that time. The Patriots’ offensive line has allowed an average of 23.5 sacks per season since 2006. For further context, the O-line allowed 35 sacks in 2023 and 33 in 2024.