Bedard: After Maye legitimately used training wheels in his first start, Van Pelt will have to get creative against the Jaguars

 

We can argue all we want about the effectiveness of Drake Maye in his debut against the Texans - no, I haven't changed my mind, and after speaking to some NFL sources and hearing from Greg Cosell and Chris Simms that they've looked at the footage, I actually feel very confident in my assessment of that one game (I didn't say anything about his future play; I'm evaluating them one game at a time) - but that's pretty pointless. The game was a week ago, and the Patriots have 11 more games to go, starting with Sunday's game in London against the Jaguars.

I hope we can all agree on this point: Alex Van Pelt needs to get more creative, especially in this game that both teams have to win to avoid getting fired (Doug Pederson) or continuing to derail his "program" (Jerod Mayo).

In Van Pelt's defense, the game against the Texans was Maye's first start, the line was changed (again), and the Texans are pretty fast on defense. I didn't expect them to cook Drake after taking him out of the oven earlier than expected. You have to bring young QBs in very slowly. You don't want to just throw them in the deep end. And Van Pelt admitted that was part of the plan - no, not the plan that got thrown in the trash at 1-4.

"The most important thing for us was to get him comfortable in his first start," Van Pelt told reporters this week.

But as the OC is wont to do, even Van Pelt seemed to take it to the extreme by not allowing a single designed run for Maye. Most playcalls would have put that in the opening script, if not the opening drive, just to get the kid going. But that's not Van Pelt's thing.

Before Sunday...let me put it this way...Van Pelt had better have a couple more clubs (or 12) in his pocket against the Jaguars, or it's going to be a long 1-6 home run.

This is the right opponent and the right time for Van Pelt to go a little crazy. And why? Let me explain.

The Jaguars, despite their talent (Arik Armstead, Josh Hines-Allen, Travon Walker, Ronald Darby, CB Tyson Campbell), are a bit of a mess defensively, especially against the pass. They rank 32nd in defensive DVOA and 32nd against the pass (16th against the run).

In defense of new coordinator Ryan Nielsen, Jacksonville's toughest games defensively have come against Tua Tagovailoa, Josh Allen, CJ Stroud and an up-and-coming Caleb Williams (Joe Flacco, who scored 34 points in a Jaguars win, was something of an outlier in that group). It's not really Nielsen's fault, either: The Jaguars are a dumb team with expensive penalties, misallocations and botched coverages (and the offense isn't exactly precise either). That might be because this is Nielsen's first season with the team and he completely changed the scheme after Mike Caldwell was fired, even though the Jaguars were 10th in defensive DVOA in 2023.

Nevertheless, the Patriots need to build off Maye’s first start against a really bad defense that you hope he doesn’t immediately start losing in Week 7 (film says that’s highly unlikely).

The problem with banking on the Patriots' loss is that the team hasn't been able to put up enough offensive rebounds in the past, and that's where Van Pelt comes into play this week.