Drake Maye Week 2 QB Grade: Patriots @ Dolphins

Outside of Caleb Williams (for obvious reasons) Drake Maye maybe my favorite QB to grade and review, and not because he's a rollercoaster like Love is a lot of times, but just because of how well he can play the QB position when he is on his game. Yesterday was one of those days as he lead the Patriots to their first win under the Vrabel era, a 33-27 road win in Miami. Let's take a look at the breakdown.

Basics (Season Average in Italics)

C/A: 30/46 (65.2%) | 19/23 (82.6%)

Yards: 287 | 230

aDOT: 8.1 | 6.3

Touchdowns: 1 | 3

Turnovers: 1 | 0

QB at Fault Sacks: 2 | 2

Passer Rating: 80.6 | 111.2

True Passer Rating: 109.3 | 128.9

Time to Throw: 2.69s | 2.64s

Time to Pressure: 2.71s | 2.27s

Pressure Rate: 27.78% | 34.38%

Poor Play Rate / Big Play Rate: 9.1%PPR / 3.6%BPR | 2.6%PPR / 7.9%BPR

Breakdown

• Maye had a great week 2. Hitting 2 Elite throws and just missing a 3rd on an early completion to Hunter Henry, and wide open throw that he unfortunately lead Henry a bit too much, causing him to outstretch and fall to the turf for the catch, eliminating the possibility of a bigger (and potential touchdown) play.

• His first Elite throw came on his touchdown toss to Boutte, a beautifully lofted ball to his WR who was running a 9 route, Maye put the ball where only his guy could make a play on it and sincerely made it look like a gimme touchdown with how well it was placed.

• His second elite throw goes to Rhamondre Stevenson on a delayed wheel route. Wheel routes are notoriously tough due to the abnormal route they force receivers to run and require sizeable anticipation on accuracy with that anticipation to complete them. Maye delivers a perfect ball, and Stevenson picked up 55 on the throw. Not only did he deliver a perfect ball on this he avoided backside pressure by stepping into the pocket and delivering from within it.

• That throw would later set up Maye's 6 yard touchdown scramble, a play I graded as "Great", Maye we essentially under duress immediately, bought himself some time by rolling out and scrambling in for a touchdown, using his good athleticism to get his team 6 more points.

• His first half was nearly clean in negative plays, the only negatively graded play coming on a sack he took where he made a bad decision to step up into the rush when he had receivers open. One of his incompletions was also a drop.

• He did end up taking another sack in the 2nd half where he had Mack Hollins open, however once again he stepped into the pocket and took a sack from the source of the pressure. Both of these sacks are pretty uncharacteristic of Maye, who usually navigates pressure well.

• He scored a 3.00/0.75/3.75 charting as an "Good" game based on my grading. A very solid outing for the Patriots signal caller.