Jerod Mayo had a plan.
Its principles were clear even when its timeline wasn’t.
The New England Patriots’ first-year head coach would allow veteran journeyman Jacoby Brissett and rookie Drake Maye to duke it out through 2024 for the starting quarterback position.
As long as Brissett held the edge, he would start. When that was no longer apparent, Maye was the guy.
“If he beats Jacoby out, I mean, there’s nothing else really to be said — and hopefully he continues to get better,” Mayo told Yahoo Sports during an August training camp visit. “When I talk about competition, it’s not just in training camp. It’s on a day-to-day basis throughout the season, in the meeting room, during walkthrough and on the field. So you always have to have that sense of urgency that someone’s going to take your job.
“We talk about competition all the time.”
With frustration mounting and the oft-discussed bumps in the road becoming increasingly steep, the Patriots elected to promote Maye to starter this week against the Houston Texans, a person with knowledge of the decision confirmed to Yahoo Sports on Tuesday afternoon.
The decision makes sense in the scheme of the Patriots wanting to win and win soon. But it begs several questions when it comes to the best way to set up the third overall selection of the 2024 NFL Draft for a long, successful career.
Mayo acknowledged this tension Monday on the eve of transitioning. The coach was no longer confirming Brissett was his surefire starter. He shifted instead to explaining his dilemma.
“It’s natural for fans and for the media to say, ‘Well, we have a good quarterback waiting in the wings as well,’” Mayo said. “At the same time, our mentality is, ‘How do we develop him? How do we get the guys on the field around him to develop, and move forward from there?’”
The sentiment echoed Mayo’s proclamation before the season when he announced Brissett as the starter, noting the difficulty between establishing a future foundation and imminent wins.
“The hard part is thinking in the short term and the long term at the same time,” Mayo said Aug. 29. “As an organization, though, we feel like Jacoby gives us our best chance to win right now.”
Five games later, the Patriots no longer believe Brissett gives them their best chance to win now. He’s not their best option in the short term or the long term.
But as Maye starts, fans must ask: Is this defensible short-term decision also the Patriots’ best long-term move?
How has Jacoby Brissett fared so far as Patriots quarterback?
Performance metrics don’t reflect well on Brissett.
The Patriots’ 2016 third-round pick took this job with 79 games of experience, including 48 starts. He knew the offense that coordinator Alex Van Pelt was running and had a mental bank of pro defenses from which he could draw upon.
Talent could only come into play, Patriots coaches reasoned entering the season, when an offensive structure was established.
“Jacoby right now is more suited with the skill set and his toolbox to be able to handle a lot of the issues that come up,” Van Pelt told Yahoo Sports during training camp. “Drake is still learning that.”
But Brissett’s experience has not been sufficient to overcome the combination of his own skill set and a scarce cupboard of offensive talent.
In five games, he has completed 58.5% of passes for two touchdowns and one interception, his 74.2 passer rating ranking 29th in the league.
The Patriots’ offense, as a result, has ranked 31st in points scored (12.4) and total yardage (250.8 per game).
Only the Miami Dolphins, whose quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is on injured reserve following a concussion, have scored less than New England.
“We’re in a solution-driven business, and we aren’t playing good football,” Mayo said. “We have to look at every single unit and every single player and figure out how to use this roster to go out there and win games.”
Mayo added that Brissett’s performance in a loss to the Dolphins this week “just wasn’t good enough … I think he would echo that same sentiment that it wasn’t good enough.”
Few are defending Brissett’s results.
The problem with the Patriots’ logic is whether shaking up the quarterback position is sufficient to overcome the myriad other problems on the roster.
Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr.? Don’t expect a soft landing for Maye
Only two quarterbacks have been sacked more often than Brissett’s 17 times and no quarterback has faced a higher pressure rate than Brissett’s 50%, per Next Gen Stats, which defines the metric as “the percentage of dropbacks on which at least one pass rusher affects the quarterback before the pass is thrown, resulting in a hurry, hit or sack.”
Brissett’s 2.9-second average time to throw is ninth-slowest in the league. But throwing quickly often requires open targets, and Brissett’s targets have generated less separation (3.2 yards per throw) than 27 quarterbacks’ in the league. As a result, even with the extended pocket time, Brissett has thrown to tight windows on 16.3% of his throws, ninth-most in the league.
Expect Maye to face similar pressure.
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With veteran center David Andrews on injured reserve, veteran left tackle Chukwuma Okorafor leaving the team the first month of the season and more injuries, a rotating cast of offensive linemen have allowed not only the highest quarterback pressure rate (48.3%) but also the highest unblocked pressure rate (13.5%) this season, per Next Gen Stats.
The Patriots have allowed the highest pressure rate from left tackle, center and right guard, each. Unsurprisingly, the Patriots rank dead last in pass-block win rate, per ESPN’s metric to gauge the protection a quarterback is receiving.
Maye’s first start comes against the Texans, who rank fourth-best in pass rush win rate with Danielle Hunter leading the league in pressures and Will Anderson Jr. ranking seventh.
The Patriots hope Maye’s arm talent can require defenses to play more honestly downfield while his athleticism helps overcome some of the protection deficits. Consider a preseason play where an edge rusher didn’t bite on a bootleg and instead pressured Maye ASAP. The rookie altered his arm angle to dump the pass to tight end Mitchell Wilcox, avoiding a negative play.
Could he do that again?
“Everyone’s like, ‘Whoa, this guy has a cannon,’ or ‘This guy is so smart,’” Mayo told Yahoo Sports. “But what can he do when things don’t go right? And how do you pull the nose up on the plane? Drake has the ability to do that for sure.”
As the Patriots’ plane looks to avoid a 1-5 tailspin, Maye will need that.