Patriots patience with Drake Maye will make fans sick, even if it's the right call

The New England Patriots looked surprisingly competent in the first two weeks of the 2024 NFL season, shocking the NFL world by defeating the Cincinnati Bengals on the road in Week 1 and even taking the Seattle Seahawks to overtime in Week 2. New England hoped to keep the good vibes rolling in Week 3 against the New York Jets, but as the 24-3 final score shows, the game was never close from the start.

This game was a mismatch particularly in the trenches, as New England's offensive line didn't stand a chance against New York's defensive line even without Haason Reddick and Jermaine Johnson. It got so bad to the point where in garbage time, the Patriots benched starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett who could not get anything going, and inserted Drake Maye, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, into the game for his NFL debut.

Despite the fact that Maye appeared in Thursday's game and Brissett looked abysmal all night when under center, head coach Jerod Mayo made it clear that Brissett is still his quarterback.

With how bad their offensive line is, it's easy to understand why New England is making this decision. Still, while Patriots fans can understand it, that doesn't mean that it's not frustrating.

Patriots fans want to see Drake Maye even if he shouldn't be on the field yet

Maye's debut was a bit of a mixed bag as he recorded several first downs on his only drive but also took a pair of sacks. He recorded four of eight passes overall for 22 yards. While Maye moving the chains was encouraging to see, it was still abundantly clear that New England's offensive line didn't give him much of a chance to do much of anything. That is a problem.

Nothing is more crucial when dealing with a rookie quarterback than giving him enough to work with to succeed. The simple fact is that the Patriots do not have enough to support Maye right now. That might change if their offensive line improves in the coming weeks, but playing Maye now would open up the possibility of him forming bad habits behind a bad offensive line and more importantly, make it much more likely that he'll get hurt.

With a matchup against the San Francisco 49ers looming, there's little logical reason for the Patriots to actually turn to Maye, yet Patriots fans still want to see him play, and it's hard to blame them.

New England won its first game of the year, but Brissett completed just 15 of his 24 passes for 121 yards. They forced overtime in Week 2, but Brissett completed 15 of his 27 passes for 149 yards. They got embarrassed at MetLife Stadium and Brissett completed 12 of his 18 passes for 98 yards.

In just one drive, Maye managed to complete one-third of the passes Brissett did all night and throw for roughly one-fifth of Brissett's yardage. He took a couple of sacks and he was performing in garbage time, but even if you look back to the preseason it was clear that Maye was the better quarterback of the two. Having the better option especially when the Patriots invested so much into him, on the bench, is tough for Patriots fans to watch, understandably.

Fortunately, it sounds like Maye won't be pinned to the bench for the entire season according to Albert Breer of SI.

"My understanding is that the plan is for that to happen at some point in 2024—this won’t be a full-on redshirt year," writes Breer. "They’ll be patient. But Maye’s progress has gotten to the point where the expectation is he’ll earn his way on to the field relatively soon, with the one caveat being that the Patriots’ offense will have to show (as it did against the Cincinnati Bengals, then didn’t against the Jets) that it can play the way it needs to in order to support a rookie quarterback."

At this point, it isn't up to Maye when he starts - it's up to how the offense looks. If the offensive line looks as overmatched as it did on Thursday, it'd accomplish nothing to throw Maye into the fire. Once they look competent, the expectation is that Maye could take over.

Hopefully, for the sanity of everyone involved, the offensive line and offense as a whole will show major improvement in the weeks to come so that the best quarterback on the roster and the future face of the franchise can play sooner rather than later.