R1/3: Drake Maye QB UNC (1st Start this week)
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Makes me feel better about having Jacoby around to ease the transition. The first 4 (or 8, or 12...) games are going to be ugly and feel disappointing. But it's not clear a rookie QB, even a talented one, can be expected to deliver all that much better results and if this helps Drake's health and development I'm all for it.
I'm glad he got some action last night. I think first hand experience at the size and speed of the NFL will help him learn/study better. I also don't want to see him in any high pressure situations until late season or the more likely event that Jacoby gets hospitalized by the shitty OL. But garbage time in the 12-13 blowouts we will suffer will be good for him.
I don't disagree with your premise but you think we're gonna get blown out a 12 more times?
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You're right, I definitely don't want to see my 3rd drafted overall pick in any high pressure situations. Heavens no. Garbage time football where the OL stops caring and misses an assignment is arguably more dangerous.
I want to know where these skills and development are actually coming from. There's really no other sport where this happens. "We need to let Bryce Harper sit and watch in the dugout before he learns how to hit an mlb curveball." He's selling his own coaching program.
I don't disagree when it comes to Maye but Orlovsky's argument doesn't really make sense.
He's adament that rookies should sit and goes on to reason it by saying that you can show a kid 15 times what a certain coverage looks like and what to do but then what happens when the kid sees it in the 3rd quarter of a tight game facing a 3rd and 6 after he's been hit 14 times? Isn't that kind of saying that you can do all the film study and practice reps you want but they need the live fire experience?
He's adament that rookies should sit and goes on to reason it by saying that you can show a kid 15 times what a certain coverage looks like and what to do but then what happens when the kid sees it in the 3rd quarter of a tight game facing a 3rd and 6 after he's been hit 14 times? Isn't that kind of saying that you can do all the film study and practice reps you want but they need the live fire experience?
History doesn't really answer the question, so I dont know whether Maye should sit or play. But the NFL has no minor leagues, where a harper can get 600 PA's when it doesn't count. So it's a bit different.
We both know it has a minor league, and the tail is wagging the dog. I don't know if he's going to be good but I also don't know how you develop him from the bench.
The answer to both of your questions is practice. The NFL and MLB are wildly different in that regard; baseball players are playing daily, you're either playing in the MLB or playing in the minors, but there's not really much of a "practice" environment. Football is practicing all week for a single game. Orlovsky specifically calls out watching film and walkthroughs; he doesn't mention practice. You can pretty realistically simulate most any situation a QB would see in a real game in practice; throw all the defensive wrinkles you want at him, have fully padded and uniformed guys bearing down on him...it's just the whistle is gonna blow without the QB getting annihilated. There's a reason coaches grumble so much about all the reductions (I think they've mainly been offseason, but do I recall correctly they've also reduced in-season practices?) to practice time, you can't develop young players without it.
Drake Maye won't learn anything of value if he's undergoing the David Carr experience. There is no rush to play him. You're just putting him at risk at out of a lack of patience.
This stuff isn’t all or nothing, either, you can get Maye’s feet wet without anointing him the starter earlier than you are comfortable with. Eg, as a team likely to be well out of the playoff picture at that stage they could easily give him some starts in the stretch run without formally demoting Brissett.
It’s more likely, though, that he becomes the starter earlier than that because Brissett gets hurt or isn’t competent enough relative to what they see from Maye in his practice snaps.
It’s more likely, though, that he becomes the starter earlier than that because Brissett gets hurt or isn’t competent enough relative to what they see from Maye in his practice snaps.
I don't think this question has a binary answer
It's not "the only way to learn is to play" or "you need to watch and absorb before you do" and whichever box you check you go whole-hog in that direction
This answer to this question is on a spectrum. Like lots of other things, people learn in different ways and at different speeds.
How long does a kid need with with training wheels before they can do circles in the driveway with their parent holding the back of the seat? How long do they do that before you let go of the seat and let them go down the sidewalk to the neighbor's driveway? How many times do they fall before you to say 'hey, let's take a break and come back to this tomorrow'?
The answer to these questions aren't that everyone should do it the same way, at one extreme or the other
Last night Mayo let go of the back seat of the bike and Maye went down the sidewalk for a half dozen plays. And it was rocky.
OK. Do you say to him "every day starting tomorrow morning you're biking the mile to school on your own"? You could. Enough mornings go by the kid might get good at it.
But there are other legit ways to do this, too
It's not "the only way to learn is to play" or "you need to watch and absorb before you do" and whichever box you check you go whole-hog in that direction
This answer to this question is on a spectrum. Like lots of other things, people learn in different ways and at different speeds.
How long does a kid need with with training wheels before they can do circles in the driveway with their parent holding the back of the seat? How long do they do that before you let go of the seat and let them go down the sidewalk to the neighbor's driveway? How many times do they fall before you to say 'hey, let's take a break and come back to this tomorrow'?
The answer to these questions aren't that everyone should do it the same way, at one extreme or the other
Last night Mayo let go of the back seat of the bike and Maye went down the sidewalk for a half dozen plays. And it was rocky.
OK. Do you say to him "every day starting tomorrow morning you're biking the mile to school on your own"? You could. Enough mornings go by the kid might get good at it.
But there are other legit ways to do this, too
Missed your post. What Mystic said
Orlovsky has also branded himself as a QB guru so he has a ton of incentive to push the idea of patience, development, aka pay me in the offseason for my guru skills to get you prepared for the NFL.
Yes, and he has personal/business relationships with some guys already, so you’re more likely to hear him say things like ‘The Patriots ruined Mac Jones.’ He’s just not gonna say of guys ‘this QB isn’t a guy who can lead you anywhere/he needs the situation around him to be very good.’
So he said "15 times on tape or can see it in a walkthrough", I think his point was that it takes a long time seeing it at live speed in practice, and repeating it over and over to really understand it. And that if you didn't get that in college, you can't expect to get it in a real NFL game, you just don't have the tools to even learn anything in a competitive game, and as such he thinks guys should be working on this stuff for weeks with the 2nd and scout teams, etc.
No, because it's the NFL and you need to at least try and compete, if you don't you both lose the locker room and fail to develop the other players. There is also likely value in watching how a vet does it then doing it yourself.
They are giving him 30% with the first team which is much higher than normal.
Everything we've seen so far indicates a well thought out plan for Maye and the team that hopefully gives him the best chance to develop. Will it work? Who knows, but it is clearly planned out and logical, taking into account both Maye's needs and the team's weaknesses.
I have this weird mental impediment that when I hear Chris Simms or Dan Orlovsky speak about QBs I automatically dismiss what they say because I saw them play in the NFL and they sucked. But I can listen to Mina Kimes comment about QBs and go she has a point. It also doesn't help that Chris and Dan are annoying.
Everyone's got a plan until
Orlovsky said pre draft that Drake Maye needed to sit for TWO years. Everything will be taken as evidence that he was right, unless Drake has a CJ Stroud type rookie performance.
If they think that's the way to go, fine, just bring in a top 64 guy in the meantime so the team doesn't give up.
I bet that helps with identifying passing windows but without the real threat of a defensive lineman about to kill you, I don't buy it.
D lineman isn't killing you in practice either.
Eventuality nothing is the same as live game situations but that doesn't mean they can't prepare for that time and everything else is useless.
Sometimes it's easier to learn a system and improve fundamentals without the live action.
You think there are 64 qbs in the league better than Brissett? Absolutely laughable, there probably aren't even half that. And that doesn't mean he's good, it just means that there are lots of nfl backup qbs that are worse than he is, and some starters.
Add odd as this seems, Brissett is 18th in the league in QBR. Nothing to write home about but the idea that it would be easy to bring in someone who could do better than him is laughable.
It’s as laughable as people who think they could have found a good left tackle without using a top 10 pick on one.
The top college programs are slowly evolving / breaking away into a professional league.
The NFL needs a minor league to standardize the way players are developed.
Seems there is room to meet in the middle here. Maybe in 10-15 years, Alabama has an association with the Cowboys, USC with the Rams, etc. Players are drafted out of high school, sign NFL contracts with guaranteed money, and go do a couple years “at school” depending on what they need before being called up to their NFL team. College and pro teams share personnel and coaching philosophies. College traditions stay the same and below whatever the new top league is called, NCAA football continues as is.
The NFL needs a minor league to standardize the way players are developed.
Seems there is room to meet in the middle here. Maybe in 10-15 years, Alabama has an association with the Cowboys, USC with the Rams, etc. Players are drafted out of high school, sign NFL contracts with guaranteed money, and go do a couple years “at school” depending on what they need before being called up to their NFL team. College and pro teams share personnel and coaching philosophies. College traditions stay the same and below whatever the new top league is called, NCAA football continues as is.
Speaking of which, the Suamataia train - which had several beat guys on it screaming - slowed a bit, what with him being benched last week and, apparently, expected to be played Sunday night in a rotation with a backup OT.
It’s a tough position for sure.
Who is going to pay to run a minor league football operation? NFL owners would never do that.
And the top college programs are printing money. They have no reason to change anything to accommodate the NFL.
I think you’re likely right and the inertia of the current system means it’ll probably be around for a while. Like the introduction of the CFP, or even the Super Bowl, any changes to the landscape would need to make financial sense for all involved. As long as both groups are happy with the way things are going, nothing will happen. If either one a) thinks they have a growing problem or b) senses a bigger financial windfall by doing thing differently, the math might change. Agreed that landscape is not protectable from today.
Not really, garbage time in a bblowout is probably the safest spot for a rookie QB because the other team is no longer killing itself. It's the 1st quarter where they're focused on knocking the QB into the next time zone that you get someone killed. And at that time you want someone like Brissett, not only because an injury does little to change your franchise's long term outlook, but because he has more experience and therefore more likely to avoid that hit.
Not to be too big of a turd in the punchbowl here or the “achchchchctually” guy but the Jets did not play soft against Maye. They were messing with him both with line games and coverage. It was not giving him a bunch of easy looks. Please continue good folk!
No reason not to try to get in Maye's head now, as they're likely to face him later this season, and hopefully many more to come.
Given the way this season seems to be unfolding, and the need to both protect our biggest organizational asset while also getting him some exposure, I don't think it would be crazy to start thinking about continuing to start Brissett, but putting Maye in for a series here and there.
Saleh seems like the kind of guy who might have gone big on the "they've beaten us 8 times in a row on our home field" angle during the week and been unable to turn it off even when the game was clearly over, which is why I was a little pissed Mayo let the clock run out in the RedZone. Those could have been valuable reps.
I don’t think it’s going to be this bad going forward because we won’t be, hopefully, on our LT4, LG4, and maybe (pipe dream) Wallace can play RT so Onwenu can play RG. We might see another handful of these lopsided games. It’s just frustrating that the OL is so bad it could hinder Maye’s development. That’s really on the front office. We knew they couldn’t solve everything in a year but they also could have done more to address pass protection.
With respect to playing Maye, reminds me of a situation some years ago when Gronk got hurt blocking on a PAT attempt. Bill was taking some crap in the post-game presser about using his future Hall of Fame best ever tight end blocking on a PAT. Bill pointed out that
1. Football is a contact sport.
2. Gronk blocks all the time; he’s a great blocking tight end.
3. “You tell me on which play a guy is going to get hurt and I won’t play him on that particular play.”
#3 was, for me, a BB classic, but when do you play the new franchise QB. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
1. Football is a contact sport.
2. Gronk blocks all the time; he’s a great blocking tight end.
3. “You tell me on which play a guy is going to get hurt and I won’t play him on that particular play.”
#3 was, for me, a BB classic, but when do you play the new franchise QB. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Eh, this is a very silly strawman for this case. Re: Gronk, I'd put the risk of injury for any PAT blocker at less than 5% per play, and less than 1% for any specific blocker. There's only a few of these attempted each game, so it remains exceedingly rare, and the injury a fluke.
With this set of blockers, NE QBs have been pressured on about half their drops (45%). That pressure translates to exposed contact, which increases the possibility of QB injury each time, surely at a higher rate than any given PAT blocker.
BB always cared about what was best to increase odds of winning. I think he'd look at these odds and sit Maye unless necessary.
Yeah, I’m it sure why there’s such a sense of crisis to do anything else. Like, there’s more things for Maye to work on than can be addressed at once anyway. So they throw him in for some game speed and conditions reps, they watch the film with him and debrief and pick out some key things to emphasize to work on and see how things go from there. This is, like, how it works with like everything else in the world when we’re not making ourselves crazy over things like the formal status of Starting Quarterback.
The only thing that guy is a guru of is "stepping on the back line of the end zone for an unintentional safety because he has no fucking spatial awareness." FOH Orlovsky. I know you've gotta earn a living, but he should just STFU.
Yeah I saw at least one cover 0, or at least I thought I did. I didn't think they were turtling, I think they wanted to keep NE out of the end zone and were calling plays and trying accordingly. As they damn well should.
Far be it from me to agree with Aaron Rodgers, but he makes the argument for "patience" in his appearance on McAfee.
Speaking for myself, I outright reject the notion that you put Maye out there just for the sake of shaking things up to somehow cover a shitty OL, seeing what you've got (now), trying to steal some ball games, or to make the games more interesting as a justification for selling tickets - so I find myself nodding along with Aaron here. As a human being that cares enough about this team to post on an internet forum, my emotions get the best of me and these ideas start to sound plausible, bordering on justifiable, especially after a poor start (which was inevitable). I am hopeful that the regime is of the belief that "cooler heads prevail."
Even if Mayo is the tactician that the pessimists argue he may be currently, I could be convinced of an inevitable growth over time. The only thing I care to know, is whether the regime has total conviction about their development plan for Drake and that it is rooted in logic and reason, supported by evidence. Even if someone said it, I'm not sure that there are many people who believe it.
Speaking for myself, I outright reject the notion that you put Maye out there just for the sake of shaking things up to somehow cover a shitty OL, seeing what you've got (now), trying to steal some ball games, or to make the games more interesting as a justification for selling tickets - so I find myself nodding along with Aaron here. As a human being that cares enough about this team to post on an internet forum, my emotions get the best of me and these ideas start to sound plausible, bordering on justifiable, especially after a poor start (which was inevitable). I am hopeful that the regime is of the belief that "cooler heads prevail."
Even if Mayo is the tactician that the pessimists argue he may be currently, I could be convinced of an inevitable growth over time. The only thing I care to know, is whether the regime has total conviction about their development plan for Drake and that it is rooted in logic and reason, supported by evidence. Even if someone said it, I'm not sure that there are many people who believe it.
That's a bit of a strawman, no? No one here is talking about wins and losses or shaking things up. We all know that losses will be the default result and most hope for a better draft pick, with a maybe a more competitive product, but no one thinks adding a rookie QB will lead to a deep playoff run. People want to see Maye because he's ostensibly the future and it might be nice to know if he actually is . It's not all unreasonable to want to see Maye play, just as the other QBs drafted with him are. Maybe he's Mac Jones? Maybe he's not. All we know so far is that he can carry a clipboard. It's not remotely unreasonable to want to see him play.
I want to see him play, in the sense that if they put him in the game I would put down my phone and pay much closer attention to TV.
But I don’t think playing him now improves the chances of him being good in 2026, and I think it might lower those chances by reinforcing bad habits in a dysfunctional offense.
But I don’t think playing him now improves the chances of him being good in 2026, and I think it might lower those chances by reinforcing bad habits in a dysfunctional offense.
So looks like NE missed being able to draft a great WR by one year. Are there any prospects that might be worthy of a top 5 pick next spring? The o-line needs an overhaul but getting Maye a security blanket would go a long way to helping him perform at his best, whatever level that is.