Patriots General Manager Eliot Wolf said this week that the team is going to take “a collaborative approach” to deciding when first-round pick Drake Maye is ready to take over as the team’s starting quarterback and head coach Jerod Mayo’s opinion will be central to that process.
Mayo got a chance to provide an update on Maye’s status during a press conference on Wednesday. Mayo said that Maye “is taking advantage of the opportunities that he gets” and said that he does not feel that there’s any concern about Maye not getting enough opportunities at this point in the calendar.
“No. My message is, it’s not how many opportunities, it’s what you do with the opportunities that you get,” Mayo said, via a transcript from the team. “Look, going back to the competition part of it, the better you do on a day-after-day basis, not just on the field but also in the classroom, the more reps you’ll get going forward.”
Mayo said that the rookie is also taking reps off the field via virtual reality technology. Mayo said “the virtual stuff is great and that’s another way that you can steal some of those reps without being on the football field,” but the on-field work will likely wind up being the biggest factor that the Patriots use while deciding when to elevate Maye.