It only took one game for Jack Gibbens to know what makes Drake Maye special. Two talents that can transform the New England Patriots quarterback into a playmaker impossible to defend.
Gibbens, who joined the Pats in 2025 NFL free agency, saw Maye’s magic up close as a member of the Tennessee Titans last season. Maye pushed the Titans into overtime on the road back in Week 9, when Gibbens was playing linebacker for the AFC South outfit.
Remembering the game, Gibbens revealed how “Drake, specifically, his mobility was on full display against us. We couldn’t keep him in the pocket, and he was running all over us. You can see the competitiveness and the creativity that he has with that last touchdown, scrambling around and fought to make it happen,” per Danny Jaillett of Patriots Wire.
Maye trusting his feet gave Gibbens and the Titans a ton of problems. New England’s QB1 ran for 95 yards on eight attempts in Nashville, as part of averaging 32.4 yards per game as a rookie, per Pro Football Reference. Maye also gained 6.2 yards before contact per rush, proof of his speed and elusiveness when breaking the pocket.
Earning praise for his ability to beat defenses with his legs, along with a knack for playing off-script, is becoming a common theme for Maye. A former Super Bowl-winning quarterback for the Patriots also echoed Gibbens’ appraisal of 2024’s third-overall draft pick.
Patriots Hall of Famer Sees Same Two Qualities in Drake Maye
Gibbens isn’t the only interested observer already waxing lyrical about Maye’s potential. Patriots Hall of Famer Drew Bledsoe is also a fan and even named the same two qualities as the best parts of Maye’s game.
Bledsoe, the No. 1 pick in the 1992 NFL draft, who led the Pats to a Super Bowl in his fourth season and helped the 2001 squad lift the Lombardi Trophy, explained Maye’s most important traits to Kay Adams. Speaking on the “Up & Adams Show,” Bledsoe described why Maye’s rushing ability is “such a great weapon and something, quite honestly, I’m a little bit jealous of. I’m not saying do it more, but the ability to do that really changes him.”
Salvaging broken plays as a runner is why Maye compares favorably to Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes, according to Bledsoe. The latter told Adams, “You watch Pat Mahomes, it seems like every game, Pat would make one big play running the ball. Obviously, he’s magic throwing the ball. It always seemed like in crunch time he’d pull it down to run for that first down that was just a backbreaker. I think Drake Maye has the ability to do that.”
Drew Bledsoe compares Drake Maye and Patrick Mahomes in this very important game-winning way…
@heykayadams | @DrewBledsoe
While Mahomes can frustrate defenses as a runner, the three-time Super Bowl winner often does the most damage extending broken plays and throwing on the move. As Around the NFL’s Nick Shook revealed, “Mahomes finished fifth in yards gained via scramble (331). He finished fourth in passing yards recorded via scrambling pass attempts (251 yards), and unlike most of the other top scramblers on the list, his totals didn’t correlate with a high total of quick or unblocked pressures. They were instead the product of Mahomes extending plays simply to find creases for positive gains.”
Maye showed some of those same Mahomes-esque traits to manufacture the game-tying touchdown pass to Rhamondre Stevenson against the Titans.
DRAKE MAYE! RHAMONDRE STEVENSON! @PATRIOTS TIE IT UP!
The proliferation of quarterbacks with this level of athleticism and improvisation skills demands more speed defensively. It’s one reason why the Pats added Gibbens to a transforming front seven.
Jack Gibbens Part of New-Look Patriots Defense
Changes have been wrung at every level of New England’s defense this offseason, but nowhere more than at linebacker. Gibbens has joined fellow newcomer Robert Spillane as lighter, quicker players at a position where the Pats had long valued big-bodied thumpers.
Both Gibbens and Spillane weigh less than 250 pounds, and have greater comfort playing in space and defending the pass. They will be allowed to travel laterally more often behind a more active front four expected to play the run on the way to the quarterback.
It’s all a far cry from the two-gap defensive lines and downhill, heavy-hitting linebackers former head coach Bill Belichick and his immediate successor Jerod Mayo favored. Mike Vrabel was part of that defensive blueprint as an outside linebacker for Belichick in the 2000s, but the new head coach wants something different.
Gibbens will help put Vrabel’s methods into practice, but the Patriots’ rebuild will still hinge on whether or not Maye can turn his innate playmaking magic into something more consistent.
