Shut Drake Maye down for the season after Sunday's game in Buffalo

I was ridiculed, recently, on a Patriots' podcast for a question I posed. That's okay. I once had a melanoma removed from my back and my skin doctor told me it was a good thing I had thick skin. I said, "I know."

I responded to a social media post by Patriots Daily's X account requesting questions for a mailbag for their show. Patriots' fans are privileged to have several good podcasts to listen to around these parts.

Patriots Daily is one of those entertaining and informative podcasts and it features two up and coming Patriots' reporters, Mike Kadlick and Taylor Kyles. So I thought for a minute trying to come up with a question that would make the show.

I started thinking about how far this season has deteriorated and how it hasn't gone, anywhere close to, as planned. Instead of showing improvement the more games the team has played, the team has regressed. In fact, the 2024 Patriots may have peaked in their Week One victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Remember the Gatorade bath the players gave Jerod Mayo? Little did anyone know the Patriots would, in all likelihood, only win two more games all year.

The lone bright spot has been Drake Maye.

We all remember in the weeks leading up to the season opener the debate as to when to play Drake Maye. There were a few who favored the drastic idea of, basically, red-shirting Maye for his entire first season.

Then there were others who were at the other extreme of starting Maye right from Day One. Chicago, Washington, and, even, Denver were doing that with their rookie first round quarterbacks.

But the prevailing wisdom for the Patriots was to sit Drake Maye for a portion, but not all, of his rookie season. That is why Jacoby Brissett was brought here in the first place. The thought was that the Patriots' offensive line was in disarray. The Patriots were also introducing a new offense under Alex Van Pelt. Things would be ugly the first few weeks.

Did you really want to put Maye behind that kind of an offensive line? What might it do to his psyche? Or even worse, what if Maye took a big hit and was seriously injured?

Even though Brissett bristled when a reporter suggested that he was brought in as a guinea pig to take hits, that is what he was. He was brought in to take the physical and mental pounding that Maye would have taken if he was the starter. And, boy, did Brissett take some hits those first few games.

The thought was that the offensive line would begin to gel at some point. The coaching staff would find the right combination. Rookie receivers and free agents like Ja'Lynn Polk, KJ Osborn, Antonio Gibson, Austin Hooper, and, maybe even, Javon Baker would settle into roles. Maye would then slide into this well-oiled machine.

That, obviously, is not the way things worked out. In fact, it has been just the opposite. That is what got me thinking about the question I submitted and which I pose now for your consumption (and ridicule?):

Seeing as how the season has panned out opposite of what many of us expected, does it make sense for us to change our thinking, likewise, and consider sitting Maye for the final two games of the year?

I wouldn't even start Brissett again. I would start Joe Milton and see what you have in him. Reward him for all his work on the scout team this year. If he plays well, maybe his trade value skyrockets.

I am old enough to remember in 1998 when the Buffalo Bills traded a first- and a fourth-round pick to Jacksonville for quarterback Rob Johnson after Johnson started the last two games for the injured starter, Mark Brunell, and had huge games. I tend to remember something similar happened after lefty Scott Mitchell filled in, admirably, for an injured Dan Marino in Miami in the early 1990s and was then traded for a ransom to Detroit.

Essentially, instead of playing Maye at the end of the season to see what we have in him, we've already seen enough. It is best to protect him for next year by sitting him.

Kadlick and Kyles laughed at the notion. They both agreed that Maye needs the reps. He needs to play more, not less.

I understand that, but I think Maye has already gotten more reps this year than many of us expected. I believe he got more reps than what "The Plan" was that Mayo kept talking about all season prior to Maye getting his first start in Week Six against the Houston Texans. Given truth serum, I think Mayo would admit "The Plan" was to start Maye only in these final four games following New England's bye week – the hope being that it would take that long for the Patriots to be eliminated from playoff contention. In hindsight, that is kind of funny now.

In baseball, young pitchers are given a limit on the innings they pitch in a season. Once a young starting pitcher reaches, say, 150 innings, they get shut down, no matter what. Teams do that to protect their young pitchers from injury.

We see it all the time. Most notably, the Washington Nationals were in the heat of a pennant race in 2012 when they shut down their young ace, Stephen Strasburg, in early September when he had a 15-6 record, but was approaching 160 innings pitched. The Nationals, at the time, were considered championship contenders, but would get knocked out early in the playoffs without their ace on the mound.

It is the same concept with Maye. The decision is made even easier since the Patriots are nowhere near making the playoffs. What else is there for Maye to prove this season? We, as fans, got we wanted. We got to see Maye play and we got to confirm that he is the real deal.

Maye has given fans hope. If he goes out and tears an ACL or ruptures an Achilles' tendon here at the end of the season, his 2025 season will be lost. Then, guess what, we have lost our hope for another season.

The sole purpose for these final three games will be for evaluation purposes only. Winning is not a priority. In fact, losing would be more beneficial for the Patriots to help their draft standing.

I would play Maye this week in Buffalo and then shut him down. The one last thing I would like to see out of Maye is his ability to play in bad weather. Hopefully, it will be windy and snowy on Sunday in Buffalo.

I want a weather day like the one the Patriots played in Buffalo a couple of years ago in which they only passed two times in the entire game. The Patriots didn't pass that day because they, literally, couldn't. If soft-tossing Mac Jones would have tried throwing a pass downfield in the gusty wind conditions that day, the football may have gone backwards.

It will also be cool to see Maye play against the quarterback everyone compares him to. Josh Allen is having a season for the ages as he is well on his way to winning the MVP award. His performance the last two weeks has been nothing short of amazing. The seventh overall pick in 2018 has 10 touchdowns in the last two weeks – 5 passing and 5 rushing. He has thrown for over 342 yards in both games.

It has taken Drake Maye ten games this year to throw 12 touchdowns and rush for two more. That is unfair to Maye to compare him to Allen based on where they are in their careers right now. Could Maye, however, someday put up numbers similar to Allen? That is the hope.

But while Josh Allen will go on, after this game, to the playoffs and, very possibly, the Super Bowl, the same cannot be said for Drake Maye and his Patriots. The Patriots have nothing to gain by playing Drake Maye after Sunday, other than maybe saving some coaching jobs.

That is not enough reason for me. I have seen enough. Shut Maye down after Sunday.