The "new" New England Patriots will take the field for the first time on September 7th against former Head Coach, Super Bowl winner, and all-around nice guy, Pete Carroll. It will also be the NFL's first real look at Ashton Jeanty, the Raiders' first-round pick and dynamic rookie running back. (It would have been fine if he wore Patriots' colors instead of the silver and black.)
This is not your big brother's Patriots.Under Mike Vrabel, the 2024 also-ran team has been completely uprooted, and the whole shebang shaken up and refitted. Only the very best of 2024's roster will remain. By September, the turnover will probably lie at about 75 percent. No wonder that lackluster group wasn't about to win anything.
However, one guy will be the same, and the young quarterback who'll lead the 2025 Patriots on their journey (it says here that it will be to the playoffs), second-year quarterback, Drake Maye. One of his current (but maybe not the 2025 season's) teammates, Kendrick Bourne, had already hinted at Maye's assumption of the role model, leadership mantle.
Kendrick Bourne cites Drake Maye's emerging leadership as reason to believe in the Patriots in 2025
In an article by the Boston Herald's Doug Kyed, Kendrick Bourne is quoted talking about the emerging Drake Maye as he enters his second year in the league,
“The confidence is there, maybe even more confidence,” Bourne said. “He’s just, obviously he’s gonna be in a new system. So I think he’s in that process. He’s learning. But the confidence is there. Drake is a competitor. When we do certain things, like his competitive spirit is starting to show more, in my opinion, which I love. Coming out of that shell you know he’s gonna become a vet..."
Bourne's observations justify predictions that Maye is up to the task of helping lead the 2025 Patriots out of last year's doldrums and into competitiveness in the AFC East. Maye won't turn 23 until August 30, but his play as a 22-year-old in 2024 belied that youth. Some players are born to take command and lead. Maye is one of them.
Like Tom Brady before him, the moment will never be too big for the former UNC Tar Heel to seize. Maye stepped in as a starter in game 5, after almost no 2024 first-team reps, and was off to the races. The precocious rookie showed he should have been at the helm from mini-camp.
Drake Maye will explode onto the NFL since like a supernova in 2025
The Patriots' personnel operation made few decent moves in the 2024 offseason. One of them was not listening to the silly suggestions of some analysts that they trade the third overall pick in the draft and not take the quarterback who turned out to be Maye. Had they flubbed that, they would have essentially failed everything.
In 2025, the new top man, Mike Vrabel, has turned things upside down in Foxborough. He has engineered what has been one of, if not the best, offseasons in decades, if not ever. It was utterly superb in all respects: free agency, the draft, and undrafted free agency.
He added contributors (and many starters) from all three major offseason elements. He'll surpass even those lofty evaluations if he executes a tactical trade or two. The stage has been set for Drake Maye to succeed. Last season, it was poorly assembled, and Maye was set up to fail. Regardless, he still excelled.
Maye had no offensive line, top receivers, or standout running backs. Vrabel remedied almost all of those shortcomings, plus added a vastly upgraded defense. The A professional built the 2025 Patriots, Mike Vrabel, this offseason to win. That same person will run the show on the field. As Bourne suggests, Maye is supremely confident. He should be. The 2025 Patriots are playoff-bound.