Rookie quarterbacks in the National Football League are an interesting lot. Some are drafted to be instant starters, while others are left to loiter on the bench while their teams do what they will. If you're a third-overall pick in the NFL draft, like Drake Maye of the New England Patriots, you'd most likely be expected to slot right and start on a lackluster team that earned that pick, but that's not quite what happened.
In 2024, the Patriots made a good decision in their offseason (and not many more) by drafting North Carolina's quarterback with their first-round pick, which they rightfully earned by way of a disappointing 3-14 season in 2023.
Maye, surrounded by arguably the worst accompanying cast in the NFL, proceeded to be essentially mismanaged for the entire preseason and more, with no snaps with the first-team until about the fourth game. Yet, that notwithstanding, Pro Football Focus (PFF) still is endeavoring to slam the then-rookie for his deficiency in "single high coverage".
Pro Football Focus is an outstanding resource for sound football analysis and some good football analytics - except when they're not. Slamming Maye for his deficiency in that stat needs to be explored and debunked.
Drake Maye had an outstanding rookie season and is primed to build upon that in 2025
No matter what stat-geeks or other stat-dependent sources say about players based solely on statistical analysis, it's still subject to being questioned. PFF has stepped into the question box with their ludicrous criticism of 2024's Drake Maye.
"Biggest Weakness: Single-high coverages
Rookies always struggle in some form, but arguably the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of a weakness for Maye in 2024 was his play against single-high coverages (Cover 1 and 3). Cover 1 is a man coverage with a single free safety, and Cover 3 is a zone coverage typically with one deep free safety and two cornerbacks deep, each covering a third of the field...Maye’s 56.5 PFF passing grade against single-high coverages ranked fifth-worst in the NFL. While his play against two-high wasn’t exactly stellar, his 69.0 PFF passing grade on such plays still ranked 19th out 40 qualifiers."
Such minute analysis can be fine and helpful at times. Yet, not putting it into context isn't at all helpful. Maye's rookie season was impacted by a number of factors beyond his control, and while the stats cited by PFF may be accurate, they don't take relevant factors into consideration.
Drake Maye had little to work with in 2024, and that makes all the difference
While Maye had a low rating against "single high coverage", any poor stat has to be put into its proper context, or it's meaningless. The rookie didn't get a first-team rep during the entire 2024 preseason, and not until about the fourth game of the regular season. His development was stunted by that gross mismanagement of not only a talented rookie, but clearly the team's best quarterback.
Additionally, any statistic Maye had (he still completed 66 percent of his passes) was also impacted by two other major factors. One was that he had arguably the NFL's worst offensive line, as demonstrated by the 52 sacks it allowed. Maye was scrambling for his life on most passing plays.
That's reflected in his 421 yards rushing, most of which were gained under extreme duress. A poor offensive line impacts any throw. His 2025 will be monstrously better as a result of an almost total revamp of that unit.
Maye also had probably the worst receiving corps in the 2024 NFL to boot. His top wide receiver in catches was DeMario Douglas with a paltry 66. No one could get open, no matter what coverage was deployed by the defense. Expect Maye to thrive with a receiving corps that's also been greatly overhauled.
Maye's stats, pointed out by PFF, are therefore essentially meaningless because of those accompanying factors. If the overall scenario impacting a statistic is not clearly identified and put into proper context, the statistic is misleading and not worth the keyboard strokes it's written with.