Panic?: Drake Maye’s Recent Struggles—How Concerned Should Fans Get?

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. This message is a paid partnership with AppleCard. One of my favorite parts of Game Day is everything leading up to it. Getting the house ready for a watch party, putting on my favorite team hoodie and making one last run to the store before kick-all. You know the routine. And with my AppleCard, I can earn up to 3% unlimited daily cashback on every purchase I make with AppleCard using Apple Pay. Not a month from now, but every day. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today, subject to credit approval. AppleCard issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch, Terms and More at AppleCard.com. For the first time ever in the US, the best U23 wrestlers in the world descend on Las Vegas for the 2026 Galaxy U23 World Wrestling Championships at the UNLV Thomas and Max Center from October

1:0412 to the 18th. Don't miss your opportunity to see Team USA's wrestlers battle for gold on the world stage right here in the United States. Tickets are on sale at UNLVTickets.com. Get 20% off by using code Team USA. Mike May was a trotious in the fourth quarter in week one and he was a mixed bag in the 2025 playoffs, but I'm not freaking out yet. This is Lockdown Patriots. You are Lockdown Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team, every day. What's happened then? I am your host Nick Cattles. On today's show, we examine Drake May's trust tears without AJ Brown. In the second segment, the position most likely to still be addressed before December. But first, I'm not panicking about Drake May after week one in Seattle.

2:05Today's episode is brought to by Fandall, get $350 in bonus bets guaranteed. You bet $5 every day for seven days. Join all the action at Fandall.com. A mail bag version of the show every single Wednesday. This football season, let's start with Dave in a bunch of numbers, which I'm not going to read. How concerned are you on Drake May's poor performance in last year's playoffs combined with week one this season? I would say maybe mildly concerned Dave. I'm certainly not panicking. The expectations are earned, right? The expectations that we have for Drake May this season based on what he did in 2025 have been earned. And they, I think, are reasonable to expect him to be a really good quarterback after being the runner up to the MVP last year. But a couple of bigger picture thoughts before I hone in on what happened against Seattle

3:06and what actually happened underlying actually happened in the playoffs last year. Wednesday night against the Siouxx last week was Drake May's 34th NFL star. Now I'm not a math professor, but there's 17 games in a season. So 34 games. That means Drake May's game against Seattle and week one is really the end of his second full year as an NFL quarterback. And we have to keep that in mind, even though he did a lot of terrific things last year. And again, was the runner up to the MVP. It doesn't mean he has everything figured out. It doesn't mean he's flawless. It doesn't mean he's not going to struggle against certain looks or certain defenses. He has not seen everything in a number of things that he has seen. He has not seen them a lot. So what you have is may trying to figure out how to attack defenses like the cover six for example, you also have defenses adjusting to what they saw on the film last year because

4:13we can talk about 2024 all we want. But to me, 2024 was almost a completely wasted season for everybody, especially on the offensive side of the football, because what'd you get from Alex Van Pelt at the end of the day? There is not much. So what you saw from May last year to me was really the beginning of May in a legitimate NFL offense run by a legitimate offensive coordinator. So now defenses are going to adjust to what May did effectively last year. And Drake May is going to have to adjust to those defenses. Secondly, again, big picture. Just not forget that May did not come into the league as a completely polished quarterback. Again, it doesn't mean that last year doesn't exist. He certainly deserves all the credit for last year. And he was mostly spectacular. However, we compared him coming out of the draft to Josh Allen.

5:14And we can talk about how Josh Allen was terrific, quicker than anybody thought, including myself. You could talk about the incredible plays that we've seen from Josh Allen and the incredible numbers. He won the MVP going back a couple of years ago, right? But Josh Allen, a lot of that again is raw talent coming out. And then he had to figure things out. Greg Bedard made a great comparison to Josh Allen against the Patriots when you watch Drake May in his two games against the Seahawks. A lot of similarities. And it took Josh Allen a few years to catch up to Bill Belichick and what he was doing defensively. And it took Josh Allen a few years to understand, take the check downs, play it safe, take the profit, whatever cliche you want to use. So for sticking with the Josh Allen comparison, and I am going to because they were very, very similar coming out of college. The learning curve is still the learning curve.

6:14Now with that said, he was an arguably terrible in the fourth quarter. I ripped him just a fively so in the post game. If you want to go check it out again, you can. I spent the solid 12 minutes ripping his fourth quarter. The Super Bowl. He was part of the issue. I would say he was most of the issue in week one. But in that Super Bowl, he was part of the issue because I did not agree with the game plan. Josh McDaniels failed his young quarterback adjusting to what Mike McDonald was doing. And of course you had the offensive line and Will Campbell playing banged up to say the least. And the offensive line was an absolute nightmare. Whereas you can look at week one, the offensive line was much, much better in past protection. I thought overall the plan was reasonable. They still didn't quite figure out consistently the slot blitz which come on Josh. But again, an arguably terrible in the fourth quarter in week one.

7:16He was part of the problem in the Super Bowl. However, I want to look at the Chargers, Texans and Broncos games in last year's playoffs. I actually went back to my game notes and I went back, you know, I watched the, the film after every game and I grade each player. Evan Lazare does this Greg Badard does this and I go plus minus on plays that stand out to me. And if if you go back to last year because I did not want to allow the bad plays that you remember most of the time to cloud how Drake may really perform because I think it's become almost a fate of complete that Drake may was terrible in the 2025 playoffs. And that's actually not the truth. He was good to really good against the Chargers and his highs were very high against L.A. I actually had him overall for like a plus seven and a half in that game. I thought in the second half specifically against the Chargers, May was pretty darn good.

8:17I thought he was good against Houston. Overall I had him plus. I thought he was more of a manager in that football game. But I also thought that, you know, he made a number of good passes that the touchdown passed to K. Sean booty was a plus plus play. The touchdown to digs to find digs that that threading the needle throw was a plus plus play from him. So when you look at the plus plus plays and the plus plays and compare him to the minus plays, I actually had him graded out as an overall positive against the Chargers and against the Texans. It was really the Denver game that started to, you know, change the idea because he was bad in the first half. He was a minus four. And then he had to deal with a second half blizzard. I thought he actually considering the circumstances was okay in that second half. But he finished on the minus side. So I thought he was plus against the Chargers, plus, plus against the Texans minus against

9:18the Broncos and then had an absolutely terrible Super Bowl, which rolled into an absolutely atrocious fourth quarter and week one. But the biggest issue in the playoffs was the fumbling and at times the pressure to sack rate, which I've discussed going back to his college days and which Andrew Callan has discussed more recently. The pressure to sack ratio was not great for Drake may last year and obviously the fumbles. So when you combine those two things, but he didn't lose most of those fumbles. He fumbled, but he didn't lose most of those fumbles. So those were the two biggest issues. I think what we're dealing with Dave is you have the narratives, especially from certain corners of the media, national media, big time, some of the local media, you've got the narratives that again that he was just a complete disaster in the playoffs last year. I don't think that was the case. I think it's the narratives.

10:18We tend to remember the negative plays. We tend to remember the fumbles, but we don't quite remember the good throws against the chargers. We don't remember that the great throws against Houston because it's just I guess human nature that we always tend to remember what's not so good. And it's also a recency bias. The last time we saw him on the field was, you know, before week one was the Super Bowl. So we sat all off season long saying, man, he was bad in that game. He's got to be better. He's got to learn. And then for three quarters, he was fine. But then it all kind of reverted back to the very worst in that fourth quarter. So I think when you combine those three things, the narratives, we tend to remember negatives and the recency bias, I think that leads us to believe that he was an absolute puddle on the playoffs. And I would not agree with that. Because he as good in the playoffs as he was in the regular season, not close because he was so spectacular in the regular season, but play tends to decline in the post season

11:23because you're playing against better teams, better defenses and especially considering that was his first taste of the playoffs. And he also had to deal with some weather. There was weather in the Houston game and in the Denver game. So I thought overall, you know, if you look at that playoff run, he was plus in two games and he was minus in two games. And then you got the fourth quarter in week one after he was overall pretty much to me in my, you know, system. He was a net neutral really in the first half and I would argue through the first three quarter. Now could he fall off a cliff? Yes. But a player that reaches the type of level that he reached early last year, that would be very rare. It's not impossible, but it would be very rare, which is why I'm not panicking. I'm not panicking that, you know, Drake May is going to be an absolute disaster. I just, I'm not, I'm not believing that right now.

12:23We'll see how he responds. Coming up, the one position I could see the past adding to before we get to December. This is lockdown Patriots, part of the lockdown podcast network. Now the number one sports podcast network, your team every day. Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers collect details about you from public records, the internet, then package and sell that information often without your consent. That can lead to more span, targeted ads and more. Orra helps protect your personal information by actively removing your data from data, broker sites, and keeping it off. And Orra doesn't stop at data removal. It brings several layers of digital protection together in one app, making it easier to protect your information and identity. You know, changing a password is one thing, but protecting your personal information is a much bigger job or I can remove your information from those data, broker sites, and alert you if your information appears in a breach or on the dark web.

13:26Dark web never good. Start your free child today at aura.com slash aware. Again, protect yourself now at aura.com slash aware or a dot com slash aware. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever only on fandal. How rewarding are we talking more rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring more rewarding than an 18 point come back, maybe even more rewarding than an offensive lineman catching a touchdown. Yeah, give those big boys up front some love. This season fandal is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all new fandal rewards club featuring exclusive offers, surprises, and even more every week check the fandal app to see what's waiting for you. If you're sitting there watching the games like on Sunday, there's nothing like a game winning play when everything comes down to the final seconds. We had at least one of those in Detroit this past week. That feeling is what makes football so much fun and fandal is adding another layer of excitement

14:27with rewards and surprises throughout the season. Make this your most rewarding season ever with fandal. That's right. The most rewarding ever visit fandal dot com to get started. I can't say it enough, but I appreciate every single one of you and thank you for making us your first listen and for being an everyday or don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe if you're watching on YouTube, the likes and the comments help us out an awful lot. All right, let's jump to our next question today's mail back again. We're going to do this every single week during the season on Wednesdays. K underscore Roberts 48 by the end of the year or trade deadline. What position do you think would be our biggest need? Okay. So this is obviously pretty difficult to predict as we walk into week two because of unknown injuries and we don't really know how the team is is going to play or they're going to respond well. For example, against the Steelers after what happened last week, but I'm going to take

15:29a step. I'll take a step. Right. NoHAHA. Oftentimes I don'tigg the questions out there that I think he talks a lot about. When he moves. No, I don't agree. I told him. So, right there like that happens in festivals. Every elections in the不好 everyone's for the rest of the week. I'm going to do a video about it as an usual week has not honored cracker. Let's not count down on that, man. Date will help a lot of the rest. But at any rates of pricing, why are you sitting here around the Ginger, the panels have become firms in over the year? The worst Jacks. I believe they're the most famous for treating new Shells such as these and those who break up theosses or different seasonal scales. There's a lot of LongTV commercial accurs and then we'll start the video where you get Now, since again, it's, it's week one. You look at Elijah Ponder and I would say overall, except for very early in the game against the Seahawks. I thought Ponder played pretty well, especially in the first half. I would say in the first half, he played pretty well. Second half, he was a little bit more quiet, but maybe most importantly, he wasn't bad against the run. So as Ponder continues to mature, maybe he grows into something better than we could ever anticipate. But right now, again, the question is which position do I think would be the biggest need and your best defensive end. We don't know if he's going

16:33to play this year. Now, obviously the Patriots believe he's going to play because they would not have put him on the P. U. P. But they don't know with 100% certainty that he's going to play. And you don't know if Elijah Ponder is going to continue to be good against the runner good enough. Another issue that I think we need to talk about is Dremont Jones's usage. You know, Dremont Jones, he's 29 years old. And if you look at what he did last year, he played 38.4% of the snaps in Tennessee. So last year, he played 38.4% of the snaps in Tennessee. Then he was traded to Baltimore and he played even less in Baltimore. He went from 38.4% of the snaps in Tennessee to 33.7% of the snaps in Baltimore. So you're talking about a guy who played, I don't know what that would be average wise. I'm going to throw it out there and guess 35% or so 35 36%. So he was playing a little bit more than a third

17:40of the plays last year. So how much are you willing to play him this season? And I am concerned for as long as Landry is out. And as a continue to, I think slowly develop Gabe Ackis, there's a concern for me that you're going to play Dremont Jones too much. And you know, if you're, if you're leaning on him too much, does he wear it out? And then by the time you get Landry back, if you get Landry back, you're getting Harrow Landry back, but now you're dealing with a different type of Dremont Jones. And you could also blow that out to everybody else, right? If you're leaning massively on Dremont Jones and Ponder and Ackis with Landry being the unknown, how are those bodies going to feel by week 14? I mean, Ackis has the knee issue, right? Jones is 29. So I think it's edge, but the issue is it's very difficult to find a guy at, you know, that position that a team is willing

18:47to trade in season. Now Tennessee did it last year with Jones sending him to Baltimore. So maybe you get that type of deal. But I think it's, you know, most likely you have to survive and hope that Ackis and or Ponder pop for you. Landry returns. And then of course, you sprinkling some good scheme from that core. All right. Next question from George Smith. Why don't we use any jumbo formation against Seattle after struggling to run? I think it's a fair question. I think it's a great question. I brought up the tight end usage at the end of our latest episode, right? The fact that I didn't quite understand why you had both Tanner Arkin and in Cameron Lottu active when you did not play a single snap of three tight ends. I don't understand that. It makes no sense to me. If you have four tight ends active, then I'd better see at least a couple of snaps with three tight ends out there, especially when you're trying to establish the freaking run. So I do not understand that. I do not understand

19:52that whatsoever. I think they need to sprinkle in some three tight ends sets, especially when the box is on the lighter side defensively, like throw those three tight ends, put Tanner Arkin in there. You know, they were running Eli Rhaeton. I mentioned this earlier in the week. Eli Rhaeton. I'm a big fan of Eli Rhaeton. All of you know that. But I thought the Patriots set him up to fail. You know, he's running a WAM block against Leonard Williams early in that game. He's not going to win that battle, not even close. So Arkin is on this roster to me to be the big beefy blocking tight end. So you go into a game saying we want to run the football and you know, we want to try to dominate this game as much as we can physically in our offensive line. It's the dominate their defensive line. Yada, yada, yada, yada. But then you're your biggest, you know, run blocking tight end because you're not going to use Hunter Henry in that role often is standing on the sidelines,

20:53the entire game aside from a couple of snaps on special teams. And then you've got Cameron Lotsu. I understand not playing Lotsu because he's new to the program. I understand not playing him offensively, but he's got special team snaps as well in that game. So I just did not understand that three tight end sets. I've talked about this for the last year plus they were growing trend in the NFL. They're a way to combat the two deep safety looks that defense are playing more and more. So I didn't get that. Patriots also did not play the jumbo as you said, Jordan, as much as I wanted them to, you know, they decided to play Greg Van Routen a couple of times. One of those plays was the Rairden touchdown. And I will say during camp, you know, play action, jumbo red zone plays, they were pretty effective, you know, playing that big personnel. But I like the CM in between the 20s as well. Now, maybe the Patriots just are not as keen as I am and you are on three tight ends or jumbo sets because I thought going into some of those playoff games last

21:55year, we would see more jumbo sets. And that wasn't really the case. So maybe the Patriots just don't believe it like they can run that as well as I think they can run it. I thought they were pretty successful last year running that jumbo offensive line. But apparently they didn't feel like that was the way to go against Seattle. Now it's week one. We'll see if that changes. And of course, offense is always a depth. So maybe night one week one, they said we're not going to play too much around with the three tight end deal. But I would, you know, maybe it'll get there slowly. But I would like to see more tight ends. I would like to see Reggie Gilliam get going. I thought he was pretty meh in week one. And yeah, I would like to see six offensive lineman. I would like to see that jumbo formation. So especially if you want to run the football. Who are the most trustworthy players for Drake May without AJ Brown active? My trust here are coming up next. This is lockdown Patriots, partly lockdown podcast network. Your team every day.

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24:05There's rewarding and then there's remarkably rewarding with chase sapphire reserve like earning three times points undying and access to sapphire reserve exclusive tables learn more at chase.com slash sapphire reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply. Thanks for checking out the locked on podcast network now the number one sports podcast network. Let's jump to our final mail bag question of the week from throwing 1233 AJ Brown at best won't be back till week seven. Who do you put the most trust into pick to in? Okay, I'll start that over again. Who do you put the most trust in to pick up the slack? Romeo dobs hunter Henry pop Douglas. I talked a ton about how the patriots I think are going to respond to this injury as far as how to deploy certain guys. But I like this because this is a different angle. And I do think you look at kind of like trust tears, right? Like guys that are

25:07going to be trusted more by Drake May than others. And clearly he's going to have his own trust tree so to speak. So let me start with Mac Holland. I think the most trust will go to Mac Holland. And I think May believes in Hollands. Hollands has given him reason to believe because all Hollands has done is make plays for May. I mean, last year Hollands was a tremendous part of the equation. I found it interesting that so many people paid close attention to Keishan booty. When Mac Hollands was the better receiver on the average of the year on the balance of the year, Hollands was better than booty. Now booty had more, you know, flashy plays deep down the field. But all Hollands does is make plays, you know, third down, third and long, fourth down. And so I think and we saw that play out at the end of the of the game in week one. Now unfortunately, the very end

26:12may trusted Hollands a little bit too much and floated that terrible pick. But think about that drive leading to that final play. Like if May doesn't throw that pick in the Patriots tie in the fourth quarter or win that game with that drive, we're going to look back at Hollands as the hero. I mean, he had two or three gigantic catches during that drive. So I think Hollands is number one on on the list. He was good in Vegas with Josh McDaniels. He was good and very reliable last year. He stepped in against Seattle week one. So I think he's the first guy. The second guy on the list, I think is Hunter Henry. And Hunter Henry is an immediate red zone weapon with AJ Brown. Out of the mix. I think you look at Hollands. I think you look at Henry. Romeo dobs is also a good red zone receiver. But we'll talk about him coming up next. Henry again, he has been a Drake May binky ever since May started a game back in 2024. He looks for Hunter Henry. He believes

27:15in Hunter Henry. Henry is sure handed. He is incredibly tough. He displayed that toughness. When May I thought made a terrible and accurate throw, Henry ended up making the catch, but Henry was going towards the sideline against Seattle and week one May threw it inside. And Henry took a shot. But he got right back up. He's a tough guy. Six foot five two fifty. You know, you look at Hollands who six four two twenty five. We know that May loves throwing two bigger targets. So I think Henry is number two. I actually think Romeo dobs will end up being number three. Now maybe maybe not this week. But I think the Patriots are going to feed dobs the football. They need to build his confidence up, man. Me what happened in week one, you can't let that linger. I would not be surprised if one of if not the first pass attempt in the game on Sunday is May to dobs to try to

28:18get dobs past what happened against Seattle. You got to build that confidence. You paid him the money. You paid him. You would inevitably need dobs to be good for your team to be good this year, even with AJ Brown back. Now if you want to look at it glass half full with dobs, he's going to get more looks without AJ Brown. So maybe that gets him into his comfort zone. Maybe that does build his confidence. And by the time Brown returns in week seven or week eight, whenever it's going to be, now you have a dobs that is much more confident knows what he's doing in the offense has built some trust within May. And then the second half of the year, you can kind of take off running. Now we saw dobs have a really good camp. So it's there. It's there. He's just got to be better than he was in week one. And then you have more than enough of the other guys to sprinkle in. You know, pop Douglas. I don't know if the trust is still fully there yet. I mean, again, we saw it in week one where Douglas is open down the middle of the field and May doesn't throw it

29:23to him. Douglas was open a couple of other times in that game in May did not find him. So I would put pop Douglas behind those guys. I also think you've got to include Ramondray Stevenson. You know, Ramondray Stevenson is another guy as I get to plug my power in. Let me plug my power in. You know, Ramondray Stevenson is another one of those guys who I think can be a much better receiver than, you know, people give him credit for. You remember the great catch last year against Miami in Miami, down towards the boundary, downfield on the right side where, you know, made it a great job of keeping both hands on the ball and he moved up in the pocket and hit Mondray for that deep shot. So I think Stevenson would be a part of that next mix. Obviously Kyle Williams is part of that next mix of Travion Henderson Eli Raredin. But to me, you know, you start with Hollins, you move to Henry, then you get to dobs to try to get him going. And there's other stuff you can do offensively, right? There's other things you can do. Like,

30:25can you get your screen game going? They weren't great with the screen passes last year. Can that improve this season? We can see more of that, especially if it's effective. Can they run the ball and not have your running back have to get, you know, 50 of his 51 yards after contact? Can you can you block it up more consistently and get that run game going? But those are the trust tears to me. It's it's Hollins, it's Henry, then it's dobs because you got to get him going and then everybody else kind of falls in line from there with pop and Mondray and Williams and, you know, maybe after Chism gets a shot, but I still think you'd start with those top four receivers before you get to Chism. All right, that wraps up this edition of Lockdown Patriots. Thanks for all the questions. Reach out to me on Twitter at nixie radio. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe on YouTube. And now I send you to the video. That's right. Send you to video. First ever 24 seven YouTube channel on the NFL right here at Lockdown. And on the audio

31:26side, check out Lockdown Fantasy football with fabs and markets for your second listen. Everybody have a great day. Catch up with you next time. This is a new era of wealth. A UBS financial advisor can help you with personalized advice and long term planning to move forward with confidence. Find out what's possible at ubs.com slash new era UBS financial services member finra s IPC. It's Halloween time at the Disneyland resort and many began to brew up delights and spine tingling fun. Halloween time August 21 through October 31. Visit disneyland.com or contact your travel advisor for important details. Hey, NFL fans, I'm Brian peacock and that is Matt Williamson hosts of the NFL six pack part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day. NFL six pack brings you the latest NFL news and analysis and breaks down all of the weekly action. A six pack of takes daily on the playoff pushed in the 2025 season or if your team's in draft mode, yeah, we'll hit that too. All right here every

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