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FOXBORO — Patriots vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf seems to have fewer concerns with his roster than certain subsets of the fanbase and media.
Wolf was asked point-blank if he feels like the Patriots can support any quarterback with the current pieces they have in place.
“Yes,” Wolf said.
That includes rookie Drake Maye.
“We’re concerned about every position. We’re always looking to improve and get things good, so whoever the quarterback is – it’s not like if Jacoby’s [Brissett] the quarterback, we just want to throw him with the wolves. So, we’re excited about our offensive line group. We’re still working to find the correct combination in there, and I think we have the pieces in place to be able to compete.”
Maye hasn’t taken any competitive reps with the first-team offensive line through the first three-plus weeks of training camp, playing behind Brissett. Some of his preseason reps have come with starting linemen, however.
The rookie shined in Thursday’s preseason action against the Eagles when he went 6-of-11 with a rushing touchdown.
“It was good to see him get in the other night. It was really good to see how calm and collected he was. He got headbutted at one point by Nolan Smith and made a nice play on that one,” Wolf said referencing a roughing the passer penalty. “But he’s steadily improved. He’s put his head down and worked. He’s a great teammate, and we’re excited to see where his development can go.”
Wolf wouldn’t say when he believes Maye will be ready to start, however. Head coach Jerod Mayo said Friday that the quarterback competition between Maye and Brissett is still ongoing.
It hasn’t looked like much a legitimate battle in camp, however.
“We’ll have to see. Again, he didn’t get a lot of snaps … in the first game. He did pretty well in his snaps the other night,” Wolf said. “It’s all about building on those successes and seeing where it goes.”
One of the things Wolf highlighted from Maye’s performance Thursday was that the 2024 third overall pick just played “ball” rather than thinking about “coaching points” and “trying to do everything perfect.”
“Drake’s very conscientious,” Wolf said.
Brissett is the safer option to start at quarterback, but Maye would provide the team with more upside and a higher ceiling. Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud started from Week 1 last season as a rookie and led his team to a 9-6 record in 15 starts.
Wolf was asked if Stroud’s success makes it difficult to be patient with a top prospect like Maye.
“I mean, if you go look at it, C.J. Stroud was the anomaly in that regard,” Wolf said. “Again, it’s not about one person or one player. It’s about where the offense is, where Jacoby is and where the team is. We’re just focused on that.”
The kids are starting to go back to school. Football is starting back up again. The NBA schedule has been released for the upcoming season. You can feel it in the air that the world is turning forward to the coming year.
But I can’t let go of the Boston Celtics Championship season that easily. It was too hard fought. By all of us (of course). We trudged through years of uncertainty. Spent countless hours defending our team to friends that remained unconvinced. Poured our hearts into snarky comebacks to online trolls on social media. All to just to stand at the top of the mountain and say “see, I told you so.”
So before we turn the corner to the new year, I want us all to look back and appreciate the championship season that was. We can start by remembering all our favorite regular season games (or moments if you like) from the 2023-24 season.
Was it opening night when Kristaps Porzingis showed exactly what kind of cheat code he was going to be for this team? Was it Christmas day when we got to open up a Beat LA under the tree? Was it beating Miami …all 3 times we played them? Or perhaps Golden State?
There are plenty to choose from, share with us your favorites in the comments below.
Other topics:
We’ll get to next year soon enough. Let’s live in the recent past for just a little bit longer.
Class of 2026 offensive and defensive tackle Tavian Branch has received an offer from Boston College.
The 6-foot-3, 280-pound prospect is a product of Riverside High School in Taylor, Penn., and is a three-star with a 5.5 rating, according to Rivals.
The Eagles are Branch’s 11th Division I offer. He also holds offers from Cincinnati, Duke, Kent State, Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Women’s Soccer: Merrimack at Boston College | 1 p.m. ET | Live Video | Live Stats
15 days.
Check out our…
.@Bijan5Robinson and @ZayFlowers taking time to sign autographs ahead of their matchup 🤝
📱: Stream #ATLvsBAL at 12pm ET on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/awCdO1LPYq
— NFL (@NFL) August 17, 2024
Celtics
Steve Kerr’s decision to not play Jayson Tatum in two of the United States wins in the Olympics caused a bit of an uproar, with several former Celtics stars criticizing the coach.
Kevin Garnett, however, has a different take on the matter. The Basketball Hall of Famer believes that it’s a good thing that Tatum didn’t get as much run as expected in the Olympics it allowed him to get a bit of rest after winning an NBA title.
“One of the harder years that I had personally was when you play in the Olympics,” Garnett said in an episode of his podcast, “KG Certified.” “Not only that, but Jayson Tatum has won the NBA Championship in the Olympic year, which is probably the most difficult to do, right? Not only does Jayson not have a summer of relaxing, rejuvenating himself, and getting ready for another year, but you’ve got to lock in when you [play] for Team USA. It’s serious business.”
Even though Tatum is only 26, he’s logged a lot of minutes already in his NBA career due to his durability and Boston’s deep playoff runs. He led the Celtics in total minutes this past season, logging 2,645 minutes in the regular season (16th-most in the NBA) and 768 in the postseason. As of March, he had played 1,455 minutes more than anyone else in the NBA since he was drafted in 2017, according to Boston Sports Info.
Garnett can somewhat relate to Tatum in that regard. He played all but 11 regular-season games in his first five seasons in the league (averaging 36.9 minutes per game) before playing for USA Basketball in the 2000 Summer Olympics. The Sydney Games were also played in September of that year, giving the players on that team less time to rest between the end of the Olympics and the start of the NBA season.
Garnett ended up having a fine year following the Olympics, finishing fifth in MVP voting in the 2000-01 season. But unlike Tatum, Garnett wasn’t coming off a title run, getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in the season prior.
Still, Garnett has somewhat of an idea of how fatigued Tatum might be after a long year of basketball.
“It was great that he didn’t have to play a lot of minutes,” Garnett said. “He’s coming off the Finals. I know [Derrick White] and [Jrue] Holiday were there, but to play big minutes [for] the USA, I’m glad they didn’t need Jayson Tatum. I’m glad he got to actually rest and chill.”
With Tatum coming off a title run, Garnett speculated that the Celtics star might have had a dialogue with USA Basketball about having a lesser load with the team.
“When he was getting these DNPs, I bet you that there was a conversation with him and Grant Hill or with management about coming on the team and being able to rest,” Garnett said. “When you win, you get a shortened [offseason]. Everybody else gets four, five months off and you probably get two, 2.5? And then it’s right back in the lab.”
Tatum had an excused tardiness to the team’s camp in Las Vegas in early July, arriving a couple of days late for an undisclosed reason. But he seemed a bit surprised by not playing in the two games against Serbia and logging the second-fewest minutes on the team during the Olympics.
“It was a tough personal experience on the court, but I’m not going to make any decision off emotions,” Tatum told reporters following Team USA’s win over France in the gold medal game if he’d return to the team for the 2028 Olympics. “If you asked me right now if I was going to play in 2028 – it is four years from now and I [would have] to take time and think about that. So I’m not going to make any decision based off how this experience was or how I felt individually.”
Regardless, Tatum’s summer marked just the 10th time that a player has won an NBA title and an Olympic gold medal in the same year (with Holiday and White accounting for two of those occasions). So far, only Michael Jordan (1992-93), Scottie Pippen (1992-93, 1996-97), and LeBron James (2012-13) were the only players to repeat as NBA champions in the following year.
As Tatum, Holiday, and White look to join that company, Garnett is happy that the Celtics’ top star got to save some miles. He also liked how Tatum approached the situation, too.
“I can only imagine how difficult that was for him,” Garnett said. “But shout out to JT, man. I don’t think you heard him bickering. I didn’t hear any echoes about him being unhappy or anything like that. I just think he was trying to get through it and micromanage it.”
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