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Why Patriots should stay on the path they chose with Drake Maye originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
If the Patriots start Drake Maye “too late,” what’s the harm?
He gets a few more weeks of learning. His clavicle doesn’t get turned to chalk dust after his linemen collide and set some mutant defensive end loose off the edge.
He watches and improves while the offense finds whatever footing it can in the early part of the year.
If the Patriots start Drake Maye too early?
He could get Darnolded. Or Zach Wilsoned. Or Tua’d. He could get Mac’d, because — even though Maye’s predecessor had that admirable rookie year – the Patriots took away all guardrails and safety nets after 17 NFL games, put him in the most adverse situation in the league and said, “Go get ‘em.”
The resulting puddle of goo is now being reconstituted into an actual quarterback in Jacksonville.
I bet you can’t provide me one instance of a quarterback damaged by sitting too long. But we can all come up with 10 who started before they were ready for the chaos and then had to have the damage undone.
Cue the smooth-brained counter-argument: “SO YOU WANT HIM TO SIT ALL YEAR?!?!?! UNTIL EVERYTHING’S PERFECT??!!!”
No. And stop yelling.
He needs to sit until the team is ready for him. Which is the plan the team had all offseason. Just because Jacoby Brissett’s played worse than imagined and Maye’s been better (a fact Jerod Mayo acknowledged Monday morning), there’s no cause to deviate. In for a dime, in for a dollar.
The Patriots are now in the eye of the storm we all knew would hit. It’s Hurricane Nooline. (pronounced “No O-line”).
In February, I went on WEEI to say the team wasn’t ready for a quarterback. It had too many holes. And unless they wanted to choose between sitting him and watching him get battered, they should trade down and build.
I said it again in March on Quick Slants: that the easy thing to do was to take the quarterback and the thing that took guts was,…
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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/why-patriots-stay-path-chose-165606049.html
Author : NBC Sports Boston
Publish date : 2024-08-26 16:56:06
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