NFL insider says Drake Maye could start for Patriots ‘fairly soon’

“Whether it’s next week, whether it’s the week after, whether it’s middle of the season, it is clearly coming.”

Drake Maye made his regular season NFL debut against the Jets in the Patriots’ blowout loss on Thursday. AP Photo/Adam Hunger

Robert Kraft says he knew in 2019 that Jerod Mayo would be the Patriots’ next coach
Jacoby Brissett will remain Patriots’ starting quarterback after Drake Maye made his debut

Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo bluntly told reporters on Friday that Jacoby Brissett is New England’s starting quarterback.

Mayo doubled down, despite saying “I don’t know” when asked if he was going to make a quarterback change just a few hours before that on Thursday night after the Patriots’ blowout loss to the Jets in primetime.

Rookie signal-caller Drake Maye made his debut in the final minutes of New England’s second-straight defeat, prompting questions about who its QB1 will be moving forward.

Combined with what happened on the field on Thursday and that Maye will continue to receive 30 percent of starting reps in practice, as confirmed by Mayo after the game, rumors about Maye claiming the starting job are already circulating.

NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport said on NFL Network’s “The Insiders” that it’s only a matter of time before the 22-year-old claims the role from Brissett.

“What the Patriots have done — really what they’ve valued and prioritized over the course of the past couple months is they try to get Drake Maye ready to step on the field, ready to have success,” he said on Friday. “They want to make sure he is in a position to thrive, right? … They put him in in live reps against the New York Jets to just try to give him a little taste of it.

“It has all been about inch by inch making sure that the future is as secure as possible. Is right now the moment where they’re gonna say, ‘Alright, we’re just gonna turn it all over to Drake Maye’? It didn’t sound that way just simply based on the comments of Alex Van Pelt and Jerod Mayo, but what is very evident here is that it is coming.”

Rapoport referenced Mayo and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt’s assertion that Brissett is New England’s starter until further notice. Van Pelt echoed Mayo’s assertion while fielding questions from reporters on Friday.

However, both coaches seemed to infer that Maye is capable of being named the Patriots’ starting quarterback at some point this season.

“Jacoby is our quarterback until I say he’s not the quarterback,” Mayo said.

“I think Jacoby is our starter, like coach (Mayo) said. Until that changes, we’ve got to do everything we can to get the starter ready to win a game on Sunday,” Van Pelt said.

There’s no set timetable for Maye’s potential takeover of the starting job. However, Rapoport went on to say that the No. 3 overall pick’s time is coming, and it could be soon.

“Whether it’s next week, whether it’s the week after, whether it’s middle of the season, it is clearly coming. And the Patriots have, rather than put him out there, have really tried to ease him in,” he said. “You just hope, at the end of all this, that it is absolutely worth it. No one’s gonna care that he came in and got hit a couple times against the Jets, but was that valuable to his development? The Patriots obviously hope yes, and it’s pretty clear we will, at some point fairly soon, see Drake Maye.”

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