How Drake Maye is handling one of the biggest adjustments to Josh McDaniels’ offense

With the New England Patriots turning over their entire coaching staff this offseason, quarterback Drake Maye will be tasked with learning an entirely new offense going into his second NFL season. After showing promise in Alex Van Pelt's West Coast system as a rookie, he'll now need to adjust to the Josh McDaniels offense that has been run for the better part of the last two decades in New England.

One of the biggest changes Maye will have to adjust to isn't schematic, but procedural. In Van Pelt's offense, much of the pre-snap communication responsibilities were given to the center. Under McDaniels, it's the quarterback making checks and setting protections.

"He's known about that for a long time and I think a lot gets overblown, honestly, if I'm being honest with you, about what we do or don't do before the ball is snapped," McDaniels said to reporters prior to Monday's practice when asked how Maye was adapting to his new pre-snap responsibilities. "On every play in the National Football League, somebody's telling somebody where to go. We just so happened to give that responsibility to the QB."

"He's learned it very, very quickly. He's studied hard at it," McDaniels continued. "Honestly, there's always gonna be little things we can correct and try to adjust as we go forward. But I feel very comfortable with him doing that right now."

When asked a similar question, quarterbacks coach Ashton Grant echoed that sentiment. "I think he has a great grasp of it so far," Grant said. "It's gonna be a lot of repetitions, from going from one completely different system to a new one. So as many reps as we can get - and we're trying to steal as many reps as we can when we're inside. I think he's done a great job kind of taking steps forward."

Grant said that picking up the new system - pre- and post-snap - is something the quarterbacks are working on beyond the practice field. "As many ways as we could steal repetitions - we like to say we don't want the only time he's getting reps to be on the practice field," Grant explained. "Speaker 1: We try to use all the tools available to us. Virtual reality, walkthrough rooms, practice reps, coming out here, extra walkthroughs, everything we can do to get them going."

OTA observations aren't linear for the media (there is only access to three of the nine practices) but from what we've seen Maye did seem to take a step forward in terms of his comfort in the offense this week. After throwing four interceptions two weeks ago and showing erratic accuracy last week, Maye had his best day by far on Monday. He completed 14 of his 16 passes and overall looked to be in more of a rhythm. This came on a day where the Patriots were running some new plays they hadn't run before, which Josh McDaniels shared before practice.

There's still a ways to go for Maye to learn the offense, and he has time to do it. Next week will offer the first linear look at his progress, with the Patriots set to hold mandatory minicamp practices Monday through Wednesday.