Drake Maye on his relationship with Joe Milton: 'Joe's my guy'

Drake Maye was brought to the New England Patriots to be their quarterback of the future, but he’s not the only signal-caller they acquired during the 2024 NFL Draft.

The Patriots also used a late-round selection on flamethrower Joe Milton. He’s an interesting developmental project, and someone Maye has known for a while, as he explained while speaking with the media.

“Yeah, Joe’s my guy,” Maye responded, asked what it’s like working with the former Michigan and Tennessee quarterback. “I’ve known him throughout college. Saw him down at the Manning Camp. So we’re just competing.

“Two rookies in here, just trying to learn it. Competing. Both of us, we’ve got strong arms, so we’re just trying to throw it, and let it rip.”

Over the course of his collegiate career, Milton flashes immense potential, but he was never able to put it all together. Make no mistake, this will be Maye’s team, but if Milton can develop into a formidable backup, the Patriots could be set at quarterback for a long, long time.

That’s music to the organization’s ears, as they’ve been in flux at quarterback since Tom Brady’s departure. It’s only minicamp, but it seems like Drake Maye and Joe Milton could be an interesting duo to watch moving forward in the AFC East.

Jerod Mayo on developing Drake Maye: ‘He has a lot to work on’

Continuing, rookie Minicamp is underway in Foxborough, and with that head coach Jerod Mayo and the rest of the New England Patriots are getting their first look at third overall pick Drake Maye. 

As a quarterback taken early in the first round of the NFL Draft, there are massive expectations on Maye’s shoulders. Still, as of now, Mayo made it clear that he’s not a finished product yet and there’s a lot to work on in his development. 

“Early impressions of Drake? He has a lot to work on,” Jerod Mayo said. “He has a lot to work on, but I have no doubt he will put in the time. You didn’t see him out here yesterday, but he was here all night trying to get on the same page as everyone else.”

What Drake Maye is currently working on goes beyond just the practice field, though, as he also needs to put in hard work to get up to speed with everything off the practice field, too.

“It comes down to time. That’s the biggest hurdle. Then you work under some of these phase two, phase three rules where you don’t have as much time as you want to, so you can’t have those conversations,” Mayo said. “But it’s all about hard work works. We talk about it all the time and he’s working hard. So, day one is hard to really say, ‘This guy did X, Y, and Z.’”

For the time being, the person most responsible for Maye’s growth within the Patriots building is going to be offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt.

“Across the league, most offensive coordinators interact with the quarterback — the starting quarterback for the most part. We do have a group of coaches that have quarterback backgrounds,” Mayo said. “But I would say overall it would be AVP as far as that…with Drake, with Jacoby [Brissett]. We don’t know who the starter is. So, AVP will be in all of those.”