Is Drake Maye playing this week? Latest updates for Patriots preseason Week 1

The Patriots have just concluded their final public training camp practice before their first preseason game of the year on Thursday as they welcome another rebuilding team to Foxboro. The Carolina Panthers will be suiting up at Gillette Stadium this week, providing both teams the first opportunity to evaluate the roster in a competitive sphere.

Typically, preseason games are primarily meant for the players who have yet to secure a spot on the season's roster or the first chance to see how the rookies look in their NFL debuts. All of these will be focuses for the Patriots' new regime this week.

Because there are so many players that fans will want to see, especially Drake Maye, reporters inevitably had to ask Jerod Mayo if we should expect the rookie quarterback to have any playing time against the Panthers.

Although Jacoby Brissett will be the starter, Mayo made it clear that Maye will be getting snaps on Thursday, emphatically stating that all healthy players will be taking the field at some point during the game.

Drake Maye is expected to make his NFL debut in Patriots first preseason game

After a roller coaster of performance over the last two weeks of training camp, Maye will finally have a real opportunity to show what he can do in a real game when he gets under center on Thursday. It will be interesting to see which group he works with, as he has mostly been paired with the second-tier offense, which primarily explains why he hasn't thrived on the practice field.

Fortunately, he's strung together a good week of practice leading up to the game, looking more like the Maye that impressed analysts heading into this year's draft and less like the frightening "Mac Jones 2.0" others were trying to claim he was last week.

Hopefully, he can keep that up, prove the doubters wrong in game time, and put the nonsensical takes to rest.

We'll see how it all comes together on Thursday at 8 PM Eastern.

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