Sorry, NFL -- looks like the Patriots struck gold again at quarterback with Drake Maye
Fueled by his out-of-this world deep ball, Maye has put the league on notice
By
Jared Dubin
•
5 min read
Through the first seven weeks of the season, there are very few quarterbacks in the NFL playing as well as Drake Maye.
The New England Patriots' signal-caller is 152 of 202 (75.2%) for 1,744 yards (8.6 per attempt), 12 touchdowns and two interceptions, and he's added 200 yards and two more scores on 44 carries. He leads the NFL in completion percentage and passer rating, while ranking third in yards per attempt and second in expected points added (EPA) per dropback, via Tru Media. He also checks in with the NFL's seventh-lowest turnover-worthy play rate, according to Pro Football Focus, with only five such plays all year.
The best part about his start is that none of it has been strictly situational. He's tearing it up from a clean pocket and when under pressure, against man and zone coverage, inside and outside the pocket, in the quick game and on extended dropbacks, on short, intermediate and deep throws, with his arm and with his legs. He's doing everything well.
The most impressive feature of his game to date has been the deep ball. It is just electric when he unleashes the rock down the field. He is lapping the rest of the league when it comes to deep throws. According to Tru Media, Maye is averaging 1.27 EPA per dropback on throws of 15-plus air yards. The next-closest player (Jalen Hurts) is at just 0.99 EPA per dropback.
Maye is completing SIXTY-SEVEN POINT FIVE PERCENT of those passes. The league average is a paltry 41.5%. He is layering the ball over the second level of the defense, hitting hole shots in between the zones, launching it over the top of everyone, making second-reaction plays when the pocket gets muddied and still finding a way to hit a big play, firing the ball at the correct shoulder in order to keep it away from closing defenders... it's all there on the tape.
This is a significant improvement from last year, when Maye went just 14 of 49 on deep passes for the entire season. (That's a 28.6% completion rate, and he ranked 33rd in EPA per dropback on those throws.) He already has nearly twice as many deep completions (27) as he did a year ago, as well as 1.5 times as many yards (685) and the same number of touchdowns (five).
Some of the year-to-year performance on deep balls can be a little bit luck-based, but you can see just how locked in Maye is when he's attacking these areas of the field; it feels like real, sustainable improvement. He almost certainly won't keep hitting these passes at this high a rate, but it sure seems like we should expect him to be among the better deep throwers in the league, unless something changes about the way he's playing the position.
The way Maye is playing against pressure is also impressive. He's just calm back there. He's able to hang in the pocket and find late outlets. He's able to slide through the muck and buy time for his guys to get open. He's able to roll out of the pocket (especially to his right) and create on the move, turning potential negative plays into positive ones. And he's able to stick his back foot in the ground and deliver a strike quickly while the rush bears down on him.
As a result, Maye checks in sixth in EPA per dropback when under pressure, per Tru Media. He's one of just six passers completing at least 55% of his throws when under duress, he's averaging 8.3 yards per attempt (an elite number in all situations, let alone when pressured) and he's creating first downs at the league's fifth-highest rate on his pressured throws.
His athleticism also allows him to make things happen with his legs when the pocket breaks down. He's been one of the most effective scramblers in the NFL so far this season, rushing for 29 times (second-most in the NFL) for 193 yards (fourth-most in the NFL) and creating 14.62 EPA (also fourth-most in the NFL). He does a really nice job of both escaping to the perimeter and stepping up and through the pocket before taking off.
And really, this is all the hard stuff. Throwing deep, creating under pressure inside and outside the pocket, taking off away from enclosing defenders -- this is not 101 level football. It's advanced stuff. And he's excelling at all of it.
But it's the easy stuff that forms the baseline for success, and that gives him something to build upon. And while the easy stuff is, generally, easier than the hard stuff, it's not like everyone in the league makes it look easy. There are plenty of quarterbacks who make the easy stuff look difficult. Maye isn't one of them.
When throwing from a clean pocket, he's 111 of 137 for 1,192 yards, eight touchdowns and just one interception. He's first in the league in completion percentage over expectation in those situations, according to NFL Pro, and second in total EPA. Maye is hitting short passes at an extremely high rate, completing 80% of his passes within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage, again according to NFL Pro, and creating the fifth-most total EPA on those throws. He's also 73 of 89 for 608 yards, six touchdowns and just one pick on throws within 2.5 seconds of the snap, good for a 115.7 quarterback rating and the most total EPA by a large margin (42.7 compared with 29.8 for second-place Daniel Jones).
When you're doing both the easy stuff and the hard stuff at a high level, you look like one of the best players in football. And that's what Maye has looked like so far. This coming weekend, he'll face what is likely his toughest test of the season to date in the Cleveland Browns defense. Cleveland has one of the best pass defenses and best defensive fronts in the NFL. The Browns will put Maye consistently under pressure. They'll cover well. And they'll force him to create in exactly the same ways he has so far this year.
If he passes that test just as he has passed all the others, it will only further confirm his new standing among game's best quarterbacks.
