ORCHARD PARK, NY — This time, the postgame isn’t an exercise in studying Drake Maye’s every wink, every grimace, every shoulder drop, and using data as more evidence that the New England Patriots’ third-year quarterback has “lost confidence.”
Nope. this time, All you have to do is focus on the in-game before the postgame, as happened with 4:21 left in the fourth quarter Sunday afternoon at spiffy new Highmark Stadium with the Patriots leading the Buffalo Bills by five points. That was the starting point in an eight-play, 73-yard drive that carried the Pats to a 29-26 victory.
It’s a big-time quarterback delivering the ball to his receiver, the receiver in this case being Efton Chism III. On third-and-5 from the Buffalo 23, Maye dropped and stepped to his right, and then, at the 32, lofted a pass into the end zone that Chism hauled in for a sprawling, one-handed catch.
Maye did the right thing by leading his receiver and not throwing into bumper-to-bumper traffic.
It is brave. And, yes, it’s big-time. Let’s talk about that word. Maye is coming off a season in which he finished second in MVP voting and, well, second in the Super Bowl. That kind of makes him big-time, except for the inconvenient fact that he had a rough postseason last year and has been all kinds of noticeably bad in the first three games of this season.
But if it’s fair game to skewer Maye with three weeks of being “overrated,” “soft schedule,” “in over his head,” “he and Patriots coach Mike Vrabel don’t like each other,” and, yes, let’s throw out “he’s lost confidence” for a curtain call, then it’s perfectly acceptable to give him at least a one-day hall pass as a big-time quarterback.
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How this plays out in the coming weeks will be determined in the coming weeks. Today, Maye and the Patriots enter the new home of the undefeated Bills and go pound-for-pound with veteran quarterback Josh Allen.
what is that Allen took the Bills on a five-play, 80-yard drive late in the fourth quarter that ended with a 34-yard touchdown completion to Keon Coleman? The two-point conversion attempt failed, but Allen did what veteran, playoff-tested quarterbacks do: He gave his team the lead with less than five minutes remaining.
Maye had made just enough mistakes earlier in the day — like getting strip-sacked and losing the ball instead of diving — to make it possible, maybe doable, and, in a seemingly-cynical way, maybe inevitable that Maye would do something terrible on the ensuing make-or-break drive.
But no. With pass completions to Hunter Henry (14 yards), Romeo Doubs (12 yards) and Chism (19 yards), the Pats moved from their own 27 to the Buffalo 28. Rhamondre Stevenson gained five more yards. After the two-minute warning, Maye ballparked and missed Kyle Williams.
And then he threw to Chism, who made the big-time catch. That made Chism a hero, though he later pointed out that the real hero was his girlfriend, who drove to Buffalo to attend. Or we could call Maye a hero, except he did what big-time quarterbacks do. He delivered in the fourth quarter.
If Maye turned on anything last week — whether it was his radio, his TV or his microwave — he heard all the talk about poor schedules and lost confidence. This led to a question posed to Vrabel after the game: Did he notice anything different about his quarterback last week?
“Very prepared, focused, had a good week of practice,” Vrabel said. “For the most part, I thought there was perfection. I thought he was decisive, everybody got out there and was off and running. That definitely helped.”
Literally, it could mean Vrabel hasn’t seen these qualities in recent weeks. But let’s not quibble. What matters is that whatever Maye did last week in Foxborough, he packed it up and brought it to Orchard Park.
“I thought he stepped up. There’s some ability for him to get the ball out and make good decisions,” said Vrabel, now wearing his analyst’s cap. “I probably wanted a better ball to Kyle, but he came back and gave Chiz a better ball.”
Which he did.
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“I had a lot of confidence in myself, and I think (the way) my teammates came through and pushed me this week,” Maye said. “That’s what makes this game so special.”
Did Maye think Chism could handle the ball?
“I’m always nervous,” he answered. “I’m like a nervous mother sending her child to school for the first time.”
But, Maye said, “Then he started celebrating. Once they start celebrating, it tells the story.”
While this is the story of a surprise road victory against the Bills, it’s important to remember that every good story has a subplot. This one happened earlier in the game, in the second quarter, when Maye made an unthinkable decision to attempt a throw while swarmed by Buffalo defenders. He lost the ball, of course, and at the moment it was just another example of how the kid’s season could get out of hand. But Buffalo’s next drive went nowhere. Maye then seemed to be sacked, and the ball seemed to be lost, and the Bills seemed to run it for a touchdown, but it was all called back on review. That’s when Maye returned and delivered a 26-yard pass to Mack Hollins. He also scrambled, like Steve Grogan, for a 26-yard gain. Those two plays helped set up Stevenson’s 1-yard touchdown.
We can have a fun debate about whether that drive helped Maye regain his confidence, or whether it was about the Chism touchdown. Or we can do this: Maye was big-time on Sunday. No one will miss that.