Like it or not, Drake Maye is always going to be compared with his Class of 2024 quarterback classmates. That's how loaded that class is, with one guy in Jayden Daniels already having taken his team to an NFC Championship game last season.
Can the Patriots reach the same level as Daniels and the Commanders did with Maye under center? It's not impossible to believe that. It just shows yet again that the Patriots got the decision to select Maye with the third overall pick in 2024 right on the nose. Remember all the speculation that the pick was going to be traded to the Giants? We should all be thankful Eliot Wolf did not mess that up.
Zachary Pereles of CBS Sports agrees, as he recently touched on the Class of 2024, and Maye is the perfect guy to lead the Patriots for the next generation for a multitude of reasons.
Drake Maye should use his legs as much as his arm this season
One essential factor of Maye's game that needs to be a factor this season is his increased use of his legs on designed runs. While Josh McDaniels has spent the bulk of his career coaching pocket passers, you have to remember he had Cam Newton at his disposal in 2020.
Maye's numbers from his rookie season weren't eye-popping, but given the abysmal offensive line and skill-position group the Patriots had around him - Maye had a 47.4 percent success rate a year ago - that's certainly something for him to build on.
The quarterback accumulated 407 yards rushing when he was scrambling last season, so imagine what those numbers would look like if McDaniels implemented some designed runs for him, especially in short-yardage situations.
It's something that Pereles would like to see more from Maye this fall.
"We'd like to see more designed runs from Maye. He had just one non-sneak designed run all season, and it went for 13 yards! Josh McDaniels spent a lot of his time with Tom Brady, but he also spent a year with Cam Newton, so he knows how to use a mobile quarterback."
Given the improvements New England made this offseason, drafting TreVeyon Henderson, Kyle Williams, and Will Campbell and signing Stefon Diggs, Garrett Bradbury, and Milton Moses, Maye's numbers should pop out at us more next season. Diggs isn't exactly prime Randy Moss, but he's a vital upgrade over what the Patriots had at wide receiver last season.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that while Maye threw 10 interceptions in his rookie year - not a surprise for a first-year quarterback - is that he is not going to put the Patriots in dangerous situations the way Mac Jones did.