Two games into the 2026 season, Drake Maye doesn’t look settled, and the Patriots are feeling it.
The New England quarterback has already thrown four interceptions against just one touchdown, with three of those turnovers coming in the fourth quarter against the Seattle Seahawks in a season-opening loss. The start hasn’t been disastrous, but it has been jarring. The 2025 MVP runner-up looks flustered in the pocket and unsure of what he’s seeing behind his offensive line.
That matters now more than ever. New England is staring at matchups with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears before star wide receiver A.J. Brown can return, so the Patriots need Maye to clean things up quickly.
One clear adjustment starts with the stuff underneath.
NFL defenses are reacting to Maye, and the Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers both showed two-high safeties on more than 50% of their snaps against him through the first two games. That kind of split-safety look often turns into cover two, cover four or cover six, and it’s designed to keep the lid on the passing game. The answer is to stay patient, take what’s available and keep moving the chains until those safeties have to creep closer to the line.
That’s the kind of “disciplined” approach offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels referenced last week. Against Seattle, Maye was efficient early and helped New England build a 7-0 halftime lead, but McDaniels said he “lost patience.”
McDaniels also pointed to the balancing act Maye has to strike: protecting the ball without becoming passive. There’s a “fine line” there, McDaniels said, and he described that blend as one of Maye’s best traits.
The other issue is what’s happening inside the pocket.
Maye has not looked as composed as he did when he was carving through pressure last season. Instead, he’s bailing from clean pockets too quickly, rushing decisions and seeming to second-guess himself before the play fully develops. That can make it look like defenses are speeding him up mentally, forcing him into a faster internal clock than he wants.
Pro Football Focus gave Maye a 26.8 passing grade under pressure. There may also be another layer to the hesitation: avoiding mistakes with the football. He struggled with fumbles in the 2025 postseason, losing possession four times, and that may be part of why he’s looking stiffer in there.
Vrabel said Wednesday the answer begins with trust and decisiveness.
“Being decisive and believing in what you see,” head coach Mike Vrabel said on Wednesday about his quarterback. “Again, what we ask all our players to do is prepare to try to play fast and aggressively and make great decisions.
“Ultimately, it’s [Maye’s] responsibility to distribute the football as quickly and decisively as possible in the places that it’s supposed to go, continuing not to force things and try to just create a next play on every single play.”
The underthrows are part of the same problem.
If Maye is getting sped up and losing timing, that can bleed into his mechanics and leave passes short. Two of his turnovers have come on throws that fell short, and the last one against Seattle was a particularly costly decision to force the ball instead of taking the tying field goal.
That makes Sunday a tricky test. Jacksonville has already shown a knack for taking the ball away, and last season the Jaguars ranked No. 2 in the NFL with 22 interceptions, one behind the Bears. Through two games this year, they already have two.
Maye knows the job is as much mental as physical.
“One of the best things about getting new chances every week is having to let the other ones go,” Maye said on Wednesday. “That’s one of the best things about this sport and playing this position. You have to let plays go, and you want to be attacking the next play, learning from the ones in the past and getting after the next one.
“So, I definitely think [it’s] hard to play this position when you’re thinking about a lot of different things. It’s going to be natural to think about motions, fronts, defenses, what our guys are doing, route concepts and what they’re doing versus the play we have [set] up.
So, just thinking and trying to be instinctive. That’s one of the best things I learned in college is to be instinctive and try to play as fast as you can back there.”
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