FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Josh McDaniels flipped on some old Patriots game film as a way of introducing himself and his offensive system to Drake Maye. After his first 12 NFL starts during a promising yet inconsistent rookie season, Maye sat back and watched plays that every football fan has seen on NFL Films and NFL Network replays and social media.
It was film of Tom Brady, the greatest of all time.
The expectation was that Maye, in his second year under center, would use the same terminology and run many of the same plays. The expectation was not that Maye would turn into Brady. Or that Maye would win three MVPs. Or seven Super Bowls. Or any of that. No, the expectation was that Maye would embrace the challenges — and, in turn, the advantages — that McDaniels’ offense presents.
Under head coach Mike Vrabel, McDaniels is in his third stint as New England’s offensive coordinator and was with Brady for all six of his Super Bowl titles as a Patriot. Following in Brady’s footsteps is no doubt daunting. But there’s one convenient element about those footsteps — they could serve as a blueprint to greatness.
“Josh was with them for 20 years, so why would you not want to show how this offense can be executed at the highest level,” veteran Patriots tight end Hunter Henry said. “So that’s what we expect. Obviously, not [Drake] to be [Brady] … they’re very totally different gamers, however, yeah, I believe you need to elevate and present them one of the best.”
Josh McDaniels and Drake Maye began implementing the brand new offense, which is the Patriots’ previous offense, final spring. (Photograph by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photos)
McDaniels’ system is notoriously troublesome to study on the outset. However as soon as the quarterback will get it, it units him up for a holistic understanding of the offense. That’s what justifies all of the laborious work upfront.
“It is type of like studying the alphabet,” McDaniels advised me. “It isn’t going to alter subsequent spring. And it is not going to alter subsequent coaching camp.”
As for utilizing Brady’s movie, McDaniels needed to make it clear that it wasn’t nearly watching the quarterback alone. The educate tape is an 11-man take a look at the offense.
“It isn’t simply that we placed on movie of Tom,” McDaniels advised me. “We’re placing up movie of issues we’re making an attempt to discover ways to do higher. And a few of that has to do with the quarterback, and a few of it has to do with different issues. … It’s extra system-based, versus, ‘Hey, mimic this particular person.'”
However — you understand you’re curious. What did Maye see from his early impressions of Brady?
“The one factor with Tom, he all the time knew the place to go along with the soccer,” Maye mentioned on “Up & Adams” throughout coaching camp. “Tom was nice with figuring out the place to go along with the soccer, beating blitzers, figuring out the place to go earlier than the snap. I believe that’s one of the best factor I noticed.”
Brady had a succinct means of categorizing that type of play.
“I’ve the solutions to the check now,” he mentioned in 2017.
That’s the upside of the offense that McDaniels teaches. Defenses will current issues; quarterbacks must be part of the answer.
And to be clear, quarterback Matt Cassel, Brady’s former backup, advised me he agreed wholly with McDaniels exhibiting Brady’s movie to Maye.
“It did make you’re feeling somewhat shy about your skills to go on the market and execute at that stage,” Cassel mentioned. “However you begin to perceive, ‘Man, OK, I’m going into each recreation with a bonus.’ And I am certain that is how Drake feels. Simply due to how Josh units up performs.”
Matt Cassel, left, backed up Tom Brady from 2005-07 after which took over because the Patriots’ starter in 2008 after Brady suffered a season-ending knee damage in Week 1. (Photograph by Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald by way of Getty Photos)
When Maye sat down to check the offense, Brady’s stage of execution will need to have appeared thus far off — even perhaps unattainable. However then, in fact, we’ve seen Maye surge into consideration for the MVP this season. We’ve seen him win within the playoffs, doing what his wild-card opponent — Chargers QB Justin Herbert, now 0-3 within the postseason — couldn’t. We’ve seen Maye assist New England flip its 4-13 document in 2024 to 14-3 in 2025.
In simply his second season, Maye seems to have the solutions to the check. Simply ask one other quarterback who’s fluent in McDaniels’ system.
“After I watch Drake play, it simply appears to me like he is in a circulate state,” Brian Hoyer, who performed 15 years within the NFL, together with eight for the Patriots, advised me. “He is not considering — he is simply enjoying. And that is the place you need to get to in that system. As a result of when you may have all these instruments in your software belt, and you’ve got the solutions to the check, you do not need to be on the market having to consider it. You need to be reacting to what you see. It’s been very seldom the place I watch a play [by Maye] and suppose, ‘That wasn’t proper.’”
That is how Maye has stored defenses from discovering a blueprint to beating him. He’s the second-best QB within the NFL in EPA/play when he has a clear pocket. And he is second-best within the NFL in EPA/play when he is pressured. You may’t let him sit again and decide you aside, however you will not have success getting after him, both. There appears to be no clear weak spot in his recreation. When an opponent reveals one thing that bugs him, he and McDaniels chat on the sideline and put together a counterpunch. If they’ll’t determine it out in-game, the Patriots’ offensive workers will be sure Maye has a solution prepared by the next week.
Brian Hoyer backed up Brady for eight seasons in New England, working Josh McDaniels’ offense. (Photograph by Maddie Meyer/Getty Photos)
The system helps Maye comply with a algorithm to make selections pre-snap that may arrange the offense for achievement after the snap. The quarterback appears for tells on the line of scrimmage — a linebacker’s leverage or the protection’s response to movement — that may function an indicator if the Patriots are in the best play. If they don’t seem to be, Maye can change protections, change the path of the run or change the play totally.
It is about moving into the best play. And it is about getting out of the fallacious play.
It may possibly’t be overstated how uniquely difficult McDaniels’ system is. Former Patriots receiver Malcolm Mitchell in contrast finding out the playbook to calculus. Hoyer mentioned he didn’t have a full command of the system till his third season. Cassel mentioned that, even when he took over for Brady in 2008 after the starter’s ACL damage, he performed in a “dumbed down” model of the offense — simply to ensure he was snug at first.
The primary yr in McDaniels’ system is rigorous.
And it’s straightforward to overlook that’s the place Maye is — in 12 months 1 within the system.
“I bear in mind calling the play early on in [my rookie season], like a few of our first OTAs,” Cassel mentioned. “I known as this play, and not less than I used to be capable of regurgitate what [McDaniels] advised me in my helmet. However I bear in mind attending to the final scrimmage, having no concept what I simply known as within the huddle, and simply going, ‘What within the hell am I going to do now?’
“However I do not need to appear like a idiot, so I am going to simply snap the ball, search for Troy Brown over the center, hopefully, and see what occurs.”
Fortunately for Cassel, veteran Patriots receiver Brown was usually there. Brady had Brown, then Wes Welker, then Julian Edelman. (And Deion Department and Rob Gronkowski and Randy Moss and so many others.)
For Maye, the supporting solid is that of a rebuilding roster, which is what the Patriots initially appeared like, previous to Maye and Vrabel’s meteoric rise. Maye has helped veteran Stefon Diggs look stable regardless of his ACL restoration — and former sixth-round decide Kayshon Boutte appears like an elite downfield menace. Even Efton Chism III, an undrafted rookie receiver out of Japanese Washington, has made impactful catches over the previous three weeks.
Efton Chism III has had the primary 4 catches of his NFL profession up to now three weeks, together with this first-down reception in opposition to the Chargers within the wild-card recreation. (Photograph by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe by way of Getty Photos)
That’s what has helped Maye’s MVP candidacy — the best way he has elevated this offense in methods nobody might’ve anticipated.
Holding nothing again was key to Maye’s improvement.
“Individuals preach about what’s an excessive amount of to show the quarterback? What’s not sufficient?” McDaniels mentioned. “I am such a giant believer in coaching the quarterbacks and making an attempt to show the entire particular person, and never simply saying, ‘Let’s take all the pieces off their plate to allow them to, quote-unquote, play quick.’
“I’m not saying individuals don’t have success doing it one other means. They clearly do. … I’d fairly undergo the rising pains and the labor ache of creating a mistake right here and there to discover ways to do it and methods to use these issues to your profit, particularly for a younger participant.”
McDaniels all the time appears to be zooming out and in to get the clearest image of his offense’s improvement and progress. He’s continually searching for new concepts and new methods to focus on what his gamers do effectively. In any other case? “You’re getting stale,” he mentioned.
Regression may’ve as soon as appeared inevitable for Maye. How might he probably end the season with the very best completion proportion and the very best yards per try? Certainly, one thing needed to give. Nevertheless it didn’t. At season’s finish, he remained first within the NFL in each classes.
“There’s numerous development there,” Vrabel mentioned when requested about Maye studying from McDaniels. “He discovered from a few of these cases the place perhaps he might have gone to one thing else, and I believe he is discovered from that. So, that is been actually good to see, and that is credit score to Josh, clearly, and [quarterbacks coach] Ashton [Grant].”
Within the wild-card recreation in opposition to the Chargers, Maye began slowly, with an interception within the first half and two fumbles within the second half (one misplaced). Each fumbles had been a product of the younger QB making an attempt to do an excessive amount of, unwilling to take a sack when that was what was greatest for the group. And that’s as a result of L.A.’s protection introduced a singular problem for Maye — with a system designed to pressure him to play patiently and, for probably the most half, examine the ball down.
He doesn’t but have all the solutions. He’s solely 23, in any case.
However in that second half, Maye took what the protection gave him to the tune of 173 passing yards and a landing with a 142 passer score. All that persistence paid off, as a result of lastly, Maye noticed the tiniest sliver of separation by Henry for a 28-yard landing — the one one of many whole recreation by both group.
Maye may be the youngest quarterback within the playoffs. He may be in his second season, and he won’t have but accomplished his first yr in McDaniels’ system. And nonetheless …
“He has full management,” Patriots middle Ben Brown mentioned. “I believe he simply totally understands the ins and outs of the system, you understand. And so I believe having somebody like that at quarterback is tremendous advantageous.”
It’s probably the most useful factor in soccer, which is why it’s all the way down to Maye and Rams veteran QB Matthew Stafford for the MVP award. Maye is doing it in methods which might be laborious to explain, notably when making an attempt to match him to a different NFL QB. He’s cell. He’s correct at each stage. And he’s sensible earlier than, throughout and after the snap.
Although solely in his second season, and his first below OC Josh McDaniels, Maye has “full management” of the Patriots’ offense. (Photograph by Andy Lyons/Getty Photos)
Satirically, Maye is studying the blueprint from Brady’s instance, however he appears nothing like Brady.
“The quarterbacks function [the system] at a really excessive stage — albeit it’s somewhat bit totally different for every of them,” Hoyer mentioned. “Tom didn’t throw the ball down the sector the best way Drake does. Tom was extra demise by 1,000 paper cuts and environment friendly.”
McDaniels agreed wholeheartedly, instantly pointing to the choice play that Maye ran within the win over the Chargers.
“We by no means did that with Tom. Why? As a result of Drake can do it,” McDaniels mentioned. “Drake’s model of that is fully his personal, and we’re nonetheless, I’d say, within the infancy phases of that. We’re nonetheless in our first yr.”
Maye is his personal man. His personal quarterback. With a enjoying type in contrast to anybody else within the NFL.
“You may’t evaluate him to anybody,” Hoyer mentioned. “That’s the best praise you can provide.”
Maye is past comparability. And it began not simply with McDaniels exhibiting Brady’s movie. However with McDaniels serving to Maye imagine that he might sometime do lots of the issues Brady as soon as did — but in addition do issues completely totally different than Brady.
That perception is what has the Patriots charging via the playoffs.
Earlier than becoming a member of FOX Sports activities as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years masking the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports activities Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Comply with him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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