The New England Patriots exceeded all outside expectations last season by reaching the Super Bowl, but they still have room to grow.
The addition of Mike Vrabel and many key free agents was important, but Drake Maye's second-year leap was the story of the season. He was the MVP runner-up and proved he is the right man for the job. He was unable to win the Super Bowl last season, but he's still young and may get even better.
In just his second season, Maye showed elite traits and accuracy. However, Julian Edelman recently shared which part of Maye's game he wants to see improve in his third season.
"Year three, I want to see how he deals with the offensive line when they are not performing at their best," Edelman told Patriots Wire's Sophie Weller on Monday. "There's going to be times where you can't get them blocked, but we still got to produce. And I think that's going to be the natural progression in his progression."
Maye was the most sacked quarterback of all-time in a single postseason. He was sacked 21 times in the playoffs, breaking the previous record held by Joe Burrow. The offensive line was better than the previous season, but overall, it still needs to be better. However, Maye cannot just wait around for the offensive line to get better.
As Edelman said, Maye needs to make things happen despite the offensive line's woes. The Patriots have made moves to improve the offensive line this offseason, but they still need Maye to perform if things do not improve or the offensive line deals with injuries. Edelman noted that he thinks another year with McDaniels will also help.
"Another year in the same system. This will be Year Two with Josh McDaniels," Edelman added. "I think they're naturally going to get better together the longer they play together. Seeing him being able to handle those types of situations. We saw him explosive down the field. We saw him dink and dunk with the completion percentage. That was elite. We need to see him when (expletive) hits the fan.
"That's what I want to see him, when it's gritty time. Like we saw all Super Bowl. It was tough to block those guys, but we still got to find a way."
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