Shaun Connolly

Dear Drake Maye,

Congrats dog! You are the newest great QB hope for a rabid sports fan universe that is greater than all of us. This is an area of the country where kids’ names are Brady, Mookie, Larry, Dustin, etc. and where old limping men walking out onto a field or arena will make construction workers cry.This is an area where men are now seriously bi-curious because of Tom Brady. 

Those are the shoes you are potentially filling. I know there’s been a similar version of you before you in Mac Jones, but let us be honest everyone kind of wants to forget he even stepped foot in Foxboro. And yes, you are going to have to win that job from Jacoby Brissett, but let’s face it the Patriots have decided that you are their future. That’s a lot, dog. 

It helps that everything is sort of new for you. You got a new coaching staff, you got a team that wasn’t completely built by an aging mad genius in Bill Belichick. You have a clean slate. But there is still a lot of stink still left in the air. The ghost of the genius will be inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame, the fans are pining for past greatness and reading clickbait articles that Tom Brady is considering coming out of retirement for one last run with the Pats.

You have to be quarterback with an offensive line that everyone has decided is bad. Upon multiple Google searches to affirm my opinion 6 out of the 7 top headlines read, “a house of cards.” While your receiving options are all veterans they are survivors, not stars. Your running backs may as well not line up as that style of play is escaping your league.

Luckily, you’re not going to have to score a whole bunch of points because your defense is actually still pretty good. It helps that your coach is Jerod Mayo, and it helps that the pretty stellar defense from last year is still intact this year, despite trading away Matthew Judon, that squad is going to keep the score close. It will be up to you to find points.

This is going to be a weird season and not just because the kick-offs are wholly brand new. It is going to be weird because New England sports fans are impatient, they want your greatness now. Even if you break even at 8-8, and get a wild card spot, you are still losing to the Dolphins who have a coach that looks like a guy your fans used to beat up on in high school. 

I do not envy your position. But I’m holding out hope. The positives for you are that you are a handsome white man who ran a successful football program at an elite Southern school. The negatives are also all of those and will be used against you at every step of the way you err. 

Good luck Drake Maye, we are all counting on you.