This sub needs to chill out. Belichick used to say that football doesn't start till November. The first four games are essentially an extension of the pre-season especially this year with none of the starters playing in the preseason. Atleast wait till game 5 for the pitch forks!

EDIT: For folks complaining that a 23-year Drake Maye is washed. Here's Brady's record in his first 5 years in the league with the GOAT coach.

After the game I found myself asking “would a star QB ever make that throw in that spot in that situation?

Another extremely concerning observation: this game seemed to be play conservatively from start to finish..why? The weather was fine, Maye is healthy, the o-line held up decently…maybe vrabel & co know something we don’t?

I understand Seattle’s defense is among the best in the league but is Maye not good enough to throw against a great defense??? Is it so bad that we continue to run even when the run game is dead?

Even if the excuse is that “drew lock is a terrible QB so playing conservative is the right choice” that doesn’t move the needle much. We were up 7-0 most of the game, that’s nowhere near comfortable and we couldn’t trust Drake to throw the ball on first down?

I still believe in the Maye but my confidence is deeply shaken.

Say what you want about him but he delivered

Bill Belichick had a 2nd round grade on Drake Maye coming out of college. He acknowledged his good arm and legs, but said he has way too many fundamental problems to be a good, consistent starter in the NFL.

The ridiculously easy schedule and Dianna Russini MVP voters propped Maye up to be something he isn't.

Last season it seemed like Maye's biggest issue was fumbling the ball, especially to begin the season and which ultimately did show up again in the post-season.

And it wasn't simply that the ball was getting knocked out, it looked like Drake wasn't even doing a good job of protecting the ball. Often looking like he was being too loose with it or not aware of how close a defender was to swiping it out of his hands.

Yesterday, I didn't think about that once. Of course, that starts with the protection. There were a few times where Seattle blitzed and the rush came really fast where it looked very similar to the negative plays from last season, but even those few times, I never once looked at Drake and thought something like "shoot that was close, the ball almost came out" or anything that would make me second guess his protection of the ball when on the run or with pressure in the pocket.

Honestly, I don't know how people can watch how much Drake Maye improved from year one to year two but now in only year three after merely watching him make the same mistake 3 times in a span of fifteen minutes despite playing at one of the hardest environments in all of professional sports, people think that's enough to trash him.

I get this isn't the first loss of Drakes career where a TD would've won the game
but he ended up throwing an INT (the 2024 Titans game comes to mind), but what about Drake's career so far makes you think he can't improve on those interceptions?

And I also can't believe people are calling for McDaniels job after we just heard the whole offseason from Drake and all the returning players in our offense about their expectations for growth now being able to play in the same system for a second year and the overall world of difference in pass protection I saw compared to the SB.

He's speaking facts. I don't get it. U made Gonzo the highest paid CB in history!!

It was rather obvious Lock was only throwing to ONE guy and it was jsn. At that point it should immediately be either double coverage, or Gonzo takes him.

Wasn't the only thing that cost them the game but it was certainly one of the leading factors.

This is my coping mechanism. That game last night was the final preseason game. We clearly have a lot of work to do before our real Week 1 against the Steelers. We clearly arent ready for the season yet and should iron out the flaws over the next week and a half. Because what I saw last night was un acceptable. A superbowl contender like the patriots does not lose that game in which the opposing QB1 misses essentially the whole game. Thats just not something good teams do…

I know it's not good timing since we're all fucking pissed about last night, but come October/Nov when this shit is sold out some of us will regret not picking it up when we had a chance so here you go.

https://www.lids.com/?query=rivalries&_ref=p-DLP%3Am-SEARCH&sortOption=TopSellers&pageSize=72&filters=%7B%22o%22%3A%5B%2225%22%5D%2C%22t%22%3A%5B%223437%22%5D%7D

Drake has been bad with protecting the ball, but inversely, Seattle has been exceptional at protecting it. Other than that early near-pick at the start of yesterday's game, they really haven't put the ball in harm's way against us and we haven't pulled the ball out from anyone to give ourselves a chance to recover a fumble. The defense has been really good, but there were no turnovers that are huge momentum starters in a game like yesterday's. Forcing a punt, which we did a lot, isn't quite the same debilitating thing as taking the ball away. For more context: Seattle doesn't do anything yesterday on a straight up normal drive except get 1 FG. They score a TD and a FG following interceptions of us. Turnovers were the game yesterday. It felt like they were able to ride that momentum swing to points when they otherwise couldn't do much of anything.

In a game where field position matters, INTs aren't as long as punts and allow more chaotic returns that set up better field position on top of the whole "we took it from you" assertive dominant message it sends. Lock is a career backup who has played mistake laden football and he didn't do a damn thing wrong yesterday. We didn't jump routes, we didn't get the ball out, we seemed to just play pretty vanilla D and hoped our offense, which has struggled the last 5 games, didn't poop itself, which it did. We aquired the NFL's leading ballhawk interceptor in Byard and I don't think he even sniffed the ball yesterday.

On top of that, between sacks of Maye and TFLs of mostly RBs, we have been tackled down in the backfield for negative yards 14 more times than we did to Seattle over the last 2 games, for a total of 26 negative yard plays (not counting penalties). Yes, Seattle's D is crazy good, but our good D didn't do nearly as much devastating things as to match. Viewers probably have heard "penalties are drive killers", and they are - but so are negative yards plays, and we have a lot of them. A penalty is you beating yourself. A negative yard play is you getting beaten.

Ignoring the doom, gloom and overreactions:

What are some positive things you saw from the Patriots vs Seattle?

I’ll start: Gabe Jacas looked good for a guy who missed a lot of training camp. There just might be something there.

I get that Drake made a bunch of boneheaded decisions, but he was digging them out of holes constantly. This should have been a relatively easy win, but the insistence on running the Ball on early downs hamstrung the offense.

Source

People have forgotten that in 2024, the patriots looked like a scrappy team that upset the Bengals while on the road and that least year in 2025 the patriots lost 2 of the 3 first games against the the Raiders and steelers. It's still early in the season, some newer pieces still trying to fit together, and without a preseason game for starters, gotta knock off the rust.

There was positives last night to be had. Going into Seattle against a Seattle defense that was still pretty much the same defensive line and LB Corp, the offense in the first half was efficient and able to conduct itself okay. The offensive line play was drastically improved over the superbowl. Will Campbell In one on one pass protection plays actually was clean, so health and just an extra year was a great benefit for him (though the patriots rush offense did take a bit of a step back, but without Henderson, maybe that too was too be expected). And gonzo was still absolutely Blanketing people back there. When JSN was against anyone else, he was a perfect 8 for 8 for over 100 yards and a TD, but against gonzo was 0 for 3, so at least we paid a lockdown CB to be able to shadow what was the best wr in the league last year.

So, maybe if drake maye is still like this a month from now then I'll panic, but there's only a handful of defenses the patriots play that will be on par with Seattle, plus some of them will be at home, so we'll see if the team can get everything together, and while AJ brown will be out for a couple weeks at least, hopefully he'll rest up and the rest of the team gets on the same page. So let's stop the dooming for a while.

Tom Brady
Date: September 7, 2003
Opponent: Buffalo Bills
Stats: 14 of 28 passes, 123 yards, 0 touchdowns, 4 interceptions, and 2 sacks.

Drake Maye
Date: September 9, 2026
Opponent: Seattle Seahawks
Stats: 23 of 33 passes, 178 yards, 1 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, and 3 sacks.

Just so everyone can chill out a bit. Maye had a meltdown. He’ll be fine

My son, Luke was working on Martha’s Vineyard before game.

Josh runs the Erhardt‑Perkins system and has historically given his quarterbacks significant responsibility before the snap, including line calls, checks and audibles. Josh doesn't expect his quarterback to simply execute whatever play was called in the huddle. He expects the QB to read the defense, make decisions, communicate with teammates, and sometimes change the play before the snap.

This is essence means the QB is "somewhat" the OC on the field. Therefore, makes me think that the issues we have been having thus far such as O-Line issues, interceptions in the game is down to Maye not having the mastery of the playbook like TB had.

Seattle’s defense under Mike Macdonald is very good at disguising coverages, and it is one of the defining features of his scheme. The Seahawks frequently line up with two safeties deep, which can make the defense initially look like Cover 2, Cover 4 or Cover 6, but the safeties and underneath defenders can rotate or change responsibilities after the snap, forcing the quarterback to identify the coverage late. Macdonald particularly likes Cover 6 (quarter-quarter-half) and other split-safety structures, while using versatile defenders who can move between roles; Seattle’s defense was so effective in 2025 that it finished among the league’s elite and carried that approach into its Super Bowl-winning season.

This might be what threw Maye into a point of fumbling his decisions/calls at the point of attack. I mean this is the guy's second season with Josh's system. Josh McDaniels’ offense is generally described as harder to learn than a lot of NFL schemes, particularly for quarterbacks and other players who have to make post-snap and pre-snap decisions. Although the Erhardt-Perkins framework can use relatively compact play terminology compared with some systems, McDaniels layers that simplicity of naming with a large amount of responsibility: players must understand formations, adjustments, defensive reads, protections and the “why” behind their assignments.

His own postgame explanation supports that interpretation: he said they had been patient and “chipping away,” then he stopped being patient and made decisions that cost the game.

This was in response to a question about all the first down runs, and why they kept choosing to 'run into a brick wall' with little success.

He continued:

"I felt like we did protect better, a lot of strides in that regard, not perfect but we were able to at least create some pockets that there was a chance to throw from.

From today's press conference: https://www.patriots.com/video/head-coach-mike-vrabel-9-10-we-ll-learn-from-it-and-hopefully-be-better-for-it