FOXBORO — Drake Maye and the Patriots are not getting complacent after the quarterback’s MVP-caliber second NFL season that finished with a Super Bowl berth.
The Patriots are still pushing Maye to improve as he enters his third season and Year 2 in offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels’ offense.
Maye said the offense’s biggest area of focus in minicamp has been on avoiding mistakes, but McDaniels and head coach Mike Vrabel are also putting more on his plate.
“The best thing that we kind of have been trying to focus on is limiting negative plays,” Maye said. “Negative plays in this league put you behind the chains, whether it’s in the red zone, in base downs, and just trying to stay ahead of chains, and knowing that it was really on me to put us in good plays, get us out of bad plays, and stay ahead of chains.”
Maye was phenomenal last season and finished second in MVP voting behind Rams QB Matthew Stafford, but things obviously were not perfect for the Patriots’ offense.
Maye tossed eight interceptions and fumbled eight times last season. He also took 47 sacks, and the Patriots were penalized for delay of game four times.
“There’s nothing worse for an offense than negative plays,” McDaniels said. “They put you in bad situations, and we saw that last year. When that happened to us, it’s hard to overcome those things. I don’t care who you are. We’re trying to do what we can at each position, not just at quarterback, but certainly he has a say in all of those.
“And so I think his comfort level, I think his maturity and understanding of how bad those things are for the offense, I think that’s taken a huge step forward. He understands it, he gets it, and so through that, hopefully we’ll be much improved in that area when we get to the regular season.”
Maye said he’s trying to break the habit of extending plays and holding onto the ball for too long.
“Sometimes incompletions are kind of the best plays,” Maye said.
But decisions made at the line of scrimmage before the ball is snapped can help eliminate mistakes, as well.
With experience comes more responsibility for Maye.
“I think that Josh and (quarterbacks coach) Ashton (Grant) have given him some really positive things to work on, some areas of focus, and being able to try to limit mistakes at the line of scrimmage,” head coach Mike Vrabel said. “Get us in the best play. Not that we are going to be perfect, but being able to use every resource that we have to get us into the right play and be able to give us an option to have a positive play.
“Whether they are pressuring or they are in a look that is not advantageous to the play, we do not want to be tentative, so there is a fine line of that. But I think expanding some of that into the second year of the system has been good to see here in the spring.”
Maye said he’s trying to be a “play caller” at the line of scrimmage. The Patriots have been testing him to rush to the line of scrimmage and get his offense into a better play call based on what he’s seeing from the defense.
The third-year pro said it’s been “awesome” to be challenged for his coaches to push his limits of knowing the offense.
“The quarterback at the line of scrimmage, you can do two things,” McDaniels said. “You can tell them that they don’t have much freedom and responsibility and just tell them to snap the football and hope for the best and try to execute as best they can. Or you can, if they’re capable and able and willing and want to and can do it at a high level, you can give them some tools for them to try to use to help us in every way, whether that’s get out of a bad one, run a good one.
“I think Drake’s clearly capable of helping the football team in multiple situations like that. I think he’s definitely making progress in that area. I think his overall command and leadership, in general, has taken a big step forward. Really, really happy with his progress in that regard.”
McDaniels praised Maye’s memory and his ability to think ahead. Both of those will help as he takes more leadership of the line of scrimmage in Year 3.
It also helps the young quarterback that Vrabel and the Patriots’ front office built up his offense, adding wide receivers A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs, guard Alijah Vera-Tucker and offensive tackle Caleb Lomu.