New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye threw away a chance to swipe the season-opening game in a Super Bowl rematch against the Seattle Seahawks, falling 13-10 following a game-sealing interception.
The Pats controlled much of the first half after the Super Bowl champs lost starting QB Sam Darnold five plays into the contest. After New England took a 10-0 lead early in the third quarter, things unraveled for Maye, who threw three INTs on the Patriots' final three possessions.
The third-year QB blamed impatience on the trio of errors.
"Yeah, we had the game under control," Maye said. "Thought we had a good plan to start chipping away and be patient and lost patience and it cost us, decisions that cost us the game on my part, on my end.
"I vow to myself to be better and realize it's a long season, but at same time, we can't have those. We can't have those. It's unacceptable, and I know we got to get back to work. That wasn't how I play football and how I want to represent my game and playing quarterback for the Patriots."
Maye completed 23 of his 33 pass attempts for 178 yards, one touchdown and a career-high three interceptions. The bulk of his production came on short tosses and dump-offs. He went 20 of 23 on attempts of under 10 air yards for 134 yards and a touchdown (+8.9% CPOE). Maye struggled downfield (10+ air yards), connecting on just three of eight attempts for 44 yards and three INTs (-12.7% CPOE). All three of his picks came on deep attempts (20+ air yards), two more than he threw all last season (1).
The three INTs flipped the script as the Pats watched a road win slip away.
"You can't throw three interceptions," coach Mike Vrabel said. "Drake knows that. We put ourselves in some long-yardage situations on the one. That was probably forced and I think the guy made a great play on the last one."
The last one was the most egregious.
After trailing for the first time in the contest, Maye helped drive to the Seahawks' 16 with several solid throws and using his legs to pick up pivotal first downs. However, his impatience again reared its head. In range for the game-tying field goal with 26 seconds remaining, Maye forced a pass to Mack Hollins in the end zone that came up woefully short. It was a bad decision and horrific execution.
"(I) didn't put enough on it to get it out and it was just unacceptable," Maye said. "We had a chance to send it (to) overtime at the worst. The only thing you could do is turn the ball over and that's what I did."
Early, Maye was content to take what the defense gave him, and did a far better job finding outlets versus the Seahawk pressure packages than during the Super Bowl. However, late, he began to hunt big plays that weren't there and got burned.
"I just stopped being patient," he said. "That was the big thing. We were really good up to the point where I tried to force one down the sideline to Romeo (Doubs). We were patient and dumping it off and trying to move the chains. and we avoided a lot of three-and-outs, and that was something we try to earn more plays and the explosives will come, so just stopped being patient and made decisions that ended up, like I said, cost us the game."
Maye had no choice but to wear this L. This one can't be blamed on the O-line or poor calls. The QB simply had a horrible string of decisions that cost his club.
It burns now -- and it was truly a brutal performance -- but there is a lot of season ahead. Reminder: The Pats lost Week 1 to the Raiders last year and still made the Super Bowl. How Maye bounces back will say far more than one Wednesday game in September.
"It's such a long season," Vrabel said. "We're going to hold our head up high, and we have nothing but the utmost confidence in him and everybody on this football team, and he's going to make a lot of plays for us."
