McKone: Patriots need to stop overparenting Drake Maye
On Friday’s edition of Zolak & Bertrand, Tim McKone makes it clear the Patriots need to stop overparenting Drake Maye after the first preseason game.
This is Mayo trying to separate himself from Belichick…
Tim McKone:
Frustrating night if you’re a Patriots fan. You wanted to see the number three overall pick, and again, we’ve been talking about Maye not having the opportunity with the first team offense. Marc Bertrand’s been kind of hammering that throughout training camp. You thought this was going to be sort of your first real look at Maye with live bullets in there and again, he winds up playing seven snaps. Mike Reiss tweeted it out last night. Top rookie quarterbacks since 2021, and how many snaps they played in the preseason opener. Justin Fields, 33. Mac Jones, 33. Kenny Pickett, 32, Will Levis, 30. Trey Lance, 29. Anthony Richardson, 29. Zach Wilson, 22. Kyle Trask, 21. Trevor Lawrence, 15. CJ Stroud, 12. Bryce Young, 11. Drake Maye, 7. Drake Maye had the fewest snaps for any young quarterback coming in with expectations since 2021 in that first preseason game. To your point, I know Jerod Mayo alluded to it in terms of the offensive line and wanting to protect this kid and protect this player. That’s fine. But Greg Bedard was on post-game with Joe Murray and Leroy Irvin and brought up the fact that that second unit, that second offensive line that came in there had 53 career starts between them. So, there is experience in that second offensive line, it was 53 starts and then your two rookies that were in there as well against a Carolina defense that played one starter all night to your point. So, look to me this goes back to Jerod Mayo trying to separate himself from Bill Belichick, trying to be overprotective of a quarterback after seeing what happened with Mac Jones and the disaster that was and him not being able to handle adversity. It just feels like to me right now we’re over parenting Drake Maye and not allowing this kid to take the training wheels off.
![Drake Maye Patriots](https://985thesportshub.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/2024/08/Drake-Maye-under-center-Patriots-Panthers-preseason_1723177753_.jpg?resize=1024,774)
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