FOXBORO — If the Patriots’ quarterback battle heats up in the final month of training camp, mark Thursday’s 14-13 loss to the Eagles as the starting point of the true competition.

Patriots rookie quarterback Drake Maye impressed and led his team on two scoring drives in his first considerable playing time of training camp.

Here’s what we learned as the Patriots fell to 1-1 in the preseason.

1. QB competition got interesting

Patriots veteran quarterback Jacoby Brissett didn’t do anything to help himself, playing three drives to start Thursday’s game. The Patriots went three-and-out on his first series. Then he led the offense down the field on an eight-play, 31-yard drive before throwing an interception on a target to tight end Austin Hooper, who was too well-covered by Eagles cornerback Avonte Maddox for the pick.

Brissett finished just 3-of-7 for 17 yards with the interception.

Then Maye brought some excitement. His first drive ended with a 51-yard field goal from kicker Joey Slye. Maye’s best pass was a 12-yard completion to rookie wide receiver Javon Baker on third down after a 6-yard scramble to make the first-down conversion manageable. The drive stalled when Maye threw a deep ball down the left sideline out of bounds to Baker.

Maye scored on a 4-yard run to cap off his second drive. He kept the ball on a zone-read to scamper to his right for a score. Maye hit rookie wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk for a 5-yard gain. Polk should have been stopped for no gain, but he made two Eagles defenders miss to pick up extra yardage. Running back Kevin Harris ripped off a 14-yard run with solid blocking from the entire offensive line. Maye also hit running back JaMycal Hasty on a 23-yard catch and run.

Maye went three-and-out on his third drive, which came in the third quarter. He delivered a perfect deep ball to Baker, but the rookie wideout couldn’t hold on as he fell to the ground on the diving attempt.

Maye took a sack to cap off his fourth and final drive. Harris chipped Eagles pass rusher Nolan Smith, but left tackle Vederian Lowe still couldn’t get in his way before the sack. Maye showed good decision making, throwing away two passes on the drive. The Patriots picked up 15 yards on a defensive pass interference penalty on the series, and Maye’s lone completion went for no gain to Polk.

Maye finished 6-of-11 for 47 yards with four rushes for 15 yards with a touchdown.

So, what does this mean for the QB competition? We’ll see. But Maye hasn’t received a single first-team rep in training camp. Now that he’s proven himself in a game, perhaps that changes and the starting battle actually begins to take shape with a few weeks left until the regular season.

2. OL remains unchanged

The Patriots started Lowe at left tackle, Sidy Sow at left guard, David Andrews at center, Mike Onwenu at right guard and Chukwuma Okorafor at right tackle, which means there were no adjustments after a rough showing during a joint practice with the Eagles on Tuesday.

Maye did not receive an entire backup offensive line when he entered the game, however. First, Nick Leverett replaced Andrews at center. Then on his second drive, rookie Layden Robinson came in at right guard, and rookie Caedan Wallace came in at right tackle. For Maye’s fourth drive, Michael Jordan replaced Sow at left guard.

Overall, the offensive line performed OK outside of Lowe, who let up the sack, a pressure on an incompletion from Brissett and was flagged for a false start. It must be taken into account that they were not blocking the Eagles’ top defensive line.

3. Pressure without Judon

Let’s use that same caveat: The Patriots’ defense was not playing against the Eagles’ top offensive line, but they were causing fits for Eagles backup quarterback Kenny Pickett.

After trading Matthew Judon to the Falcons for a 2025 third-round pick on Wednesday night, defensive ends Keion White and Deatrich Wise, cornerback Isaiah Bolden and outside linebacker Josh Uche all had first-half sacks.

White, Wise and Uche will all be key in replacing Judon on the edge this season.

Defensive tackles Jeremiah Pharms and Trysten Hill, outside linebacker Oshane Ximines and safety Joshuah Bledsoe also brought pressure in the first half.

Ximines sacked Eagles QB Will Grier in the fourth quarter, as well.

4. Kicker competition

Incumbent kicker Chad Ryland still hasn’t gotten a shot at a field goal in the preseason, while Slye, his competition, is 3-of-3. Slye handled one kickoff and made field goals of 51 and 46 yards.

Ryland was 1-of-1 on an extra-point attempt. He handled two kickoffs.

The competition has been tight throughout the summer.

Up

QB Drake Maye

Was he perfect? No. Did he give the Patriots a spark? Absolutely. Maye only received six offensive snaps in Week 1 of the preseason. He showed flashes of why he was the third overall pick on Thursday night with his arm and his legs.

LB Raekwon McMillan

McMillan, coming off of his second season-ending injury in three years, looked like a classic Patriots linebacker. He was a force in the run game with eight tackles with a tackle for loss. He also assisted on another tackle for loss and contributed a special teams tackle.

DE Keion White

White is the top player who needs to step up in Judon’s absence. He sacked Pickett and brought pressure on another 3-yard desperation scramble from the backup QB.

Down

LT Vederian Lowe

Lowe is the current top left tackle. We’ll see how much longer that lasts after Thursday night, when he let up a sack, a QB hit and was flagged for a false start. Third-string offensive lineman Atonio Mafi also struggled, allowing two sacks.

CB Marcellas Dial

Dial was a favorite target of Eagles quarterbacks. The rookie, who’s battling for a roster spot, appeared to let up seven catches for 87 yards. He also allowed a two-point conversion.

WR Javon Baker

The level of difficulty was high on the pass from Maye, but Baker should have hauled in the rookie QB’s deep shot. Baker also ran a route almost completely out of bounds.

Originally Published: August 15, 2024 at 9:58 p.m.

SPRINGFIELD — Peter Pan Bus Lines is taking over Megabus routes in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states stretching from Boston to New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and points in between.

“It’s a big deal for us,” Peter A. Picknelly, chairman and CEO of Peter Pan Bus Lines.

The move doubles Peter Pan’s operations along the busy northeastern corridor, Picknelly said. Before the changes, Peter Pan offered 14 trips each way every day between Boston and Washington, D.C. Starting at midnight Thursday into Friday, that becomes 28 trips.

In the past, Peter Pan has operated only from about 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Starting Friday, it’s a 24-hour operation, said Picknelly, who is the third-generation leader of the company.

The expansion also requires new drivers and 45 new buses at $635,000 each.

“We’re modernizing our fleet, which is what our consumers want: They want a nice, clean, modern bus. We listen to our customers — where they want to go — and expand where it makes sense. We’re hiring drivers left and right,” Picknelly said.

With the expansion, the company has hired 35 driver and has plans to add even more. Also, Picknelly said Peter Pan will add more mechanics and maintenance people along the corridor to support the new operations.

“It’s a great opportunity for Peter Pan,” he said.

Megabus owner Coach USA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June, according to published reports.

Peter Pan had already taken over Megabus routes in Boston, Picknelly said.

In preparation, Peter Pan has reduced fares by close to 40%.

Megabus’ parent company will continue to operate commuter lines in and around New York City.

The Megabus website will still be active selling tickets, Picknelly said. But starting Friday those tickets will be for Peter Pan-run buses.

Most of the destinations are places Peer Pan has long served, he said. But Peter Pan is adding two new cities: one in the Philadelphia suburbs and White Marsh, Maryland, in the Baltimore suburbs where Megabus had a major presence.

“It’s a substantial opportunity for us,” Picknelly said. “We’re looking forward to many customers riding with us for the first time.”

Picknelly said travelers are choosing buses because of their cost and frequent service.

Three years ago, in the depths of the pandemic, only around 1 percent of existing lab space in the region was vacant or available via sublease. Today, commercial real estate brokerage Colliers reported last week, that number is 21.5 percent, and vacancies are expected to grow in the coming months as more buildings open. For comparison, the availability rate for office space in Greater Boston is 22.7 percent.

There are fundamental differences between the lab and office markets — notably the fact that most lab work, unlike office work, needs to be done in person. But the sharp rise in lab vacancies is a stark reminder of how quickly fortunes can change for a hot industry, even a still thriving one like Boston’s biotechs.

The amount of Greater Boston lab space that is occupied by tenants has climbed by more than one-fifth over the last two years. But this wave of new construction and office-to-lab conversions means the amount of vacant space has climbed even faster, hitting an all-time high of 11 million square feet. And for lab landlords, the scene will likely get worse before it gets better.

“We haven’t seen vacancies peak yet,” said Colliers research director Jeffrey Myers. “Once they start to turn the corner, it could take years … to get back to something we would consider more of a normal market.”

Several factors are driving the sudden shift.

Back when lab space was impossible to find, pent-up demand prompted many developers to bet on life sciences projects “on spec,” or without commitments from tenants. At the time, many local biotechs often took whatever lease they could find, sometimes renting considerably more than they needed. Meanwhile, money poured into the region’s biotech scene from venture capitalists hoping for a big payout, through an initial public offering, or from a sale to a much larger drug company, fueling demand for real estate. As a result, lab projects sprouted all over the region.

Now, many of those shiny new buildings are hitting the market — the amount of lab space in the northwestern suburbs along Route 128, for example, essentially doubled in the past five years. The small firms that took on more space than they needed are now looking to sublease some of it. The IPO machine has slowed considerably, as has the flow of cash from VC firms. And several significant players, including Takeda and Ginkgo Bioworks, have announced layoffs in recent months.

“It’s a correction from the sugar high we had during COVID when everybody was piling money into anything that said ‘life sciences,’” said Bob Coughlin, an executive at real estate brokerage JLL’s Boston office who specializes in lab deals.

The slowdown is evident all over Greater Boston. Myers rattled off a few examples topping 400,000 square feet in size, from the former John Hancock headquarters at 601 Congress St. in the Seaport that was renovated into labs but remains empty, to the former Tufts Health Plan headquarters in Watertown, also converted and empty. A similarly sized building just went up across from the Leader Bank Pavilion in the Seaport — also vacant. Lab plans have been shelved for a former auto dealership site in Needham and at the Riverside train terminal in Newton, while construction was even halted midstream on a lab building going up along McGrath Highway in Somerville.

Factor in the buildings that are under construction, and the region’s lab availability rate approaches 32 percent, according to JLL. In total, nearly 5 million square feet of labs opened in just the first six months of 2024 across Greater Boston, per JLL’s research, with only one-fifth of that newly built space already leased.

Empty floors even abound in the industry epicenter of Kendall Square. There was less speculative building in Kendall — most new buildings there are preleased to big tenants such as AstraZeneca, the Broad Institute, and Takeda. But Colliers notes a record amount of lab space is on the market now in Cambridge: 3.6 million square feet, most of it in or near Kendall.

Beth O’Neill Maloney, head of the Kendall Square Association, doesn’t sound worried. Kendall is as vibrant as it’s ever been, she said, and the empty space could allow more startups to expand there.

“It’s the normal ebb and flow as we build and fill, I’m pretty confident about that,” Maloney said. “Zero percent vacancy rate probably isn’t the healthiest for us. … The availability of some sublease space actually helps some early-stage companies grow here, thrive, and take root.”

Advocates for the industry say the empty space underscores the need for the Legislature to pass an economic development bill that would allocate roughly $100 million a year for life sciences, essentially reauthorizing two previous rounds of state assistance. The House and Senate could not reach an agreement on the bill before regularly scheduled formal sessions ended for the year on Aug. 1. The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council sent a letter last week to legislative leaders, urging them to bring lawmakers back for a special formal session to pass the bill as soon as possible, as Governor Maura Healey has requested.

“My hope would be there’s a sense of urgency,” said Ben Bradford, a vice president at MassBio. “This is a great tool for the state to recruit companies or to keep companies here.”

Still, the sharp surge in vacancies has provided welcome relief to all the smaller biotechs that had been jockeying for space. Coughlin, the JLL executive and former head of MassBio, has been working through a planned vacation this week to keep up.

“I’m doing predominantly tenant work, and I’m as busy as I can be,” Coughlin said. “I don’t like being this busy in August, but I am.”

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Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.