Drake Maye gushes about Josh Allen: "What a special player"
FOXBORO -- While Sunday's Patriots-Bills showdown will likely be a one-sided affair, there is an added level of excitement with quarterbacks Josh Allen and Drake Maye set to go head-to-head for the first time.
Allen is one an absolute tear this season and is likely on his way to his first NFL MVP. Maye has been impressive in his rookie season for the Patriots, and hopes to reach Allen's level in the near future.
So there is a lot of juice surrounding their first head-to-head matchup, which is doing a lot of heavy lifting to make a game against an 11-3 team and a 3-11 team worth watching.
While he's not playing directly against Allen on Sunday, Maye is going to have quite the task at hand as he tries to keep up with the talented QB and the a Buffalo offense that has averaged 31.8 points per game over the first 15 weeks of the season.
For a Patriots team that has yet to hit the 30-point threshold this season, that order may be too tall. But Maye is eager and ready for the challenge.
Drake Maye gushes about Josh Allen
It's hard not to gush about Allen this season. He's been absolutely electric for the Bills with 3,395 passing yards (averaging 8.0 yards per attempt) and 25 touchdowns. He's also torched teams on the ground for 484 yards and 11 rushing touchdowns, with five rushes of 20 or more yards. (Yes, he has a receiving touchdown too just to show that he can do everything.)
His turnovers are down too, with Allen throwing just five interceptions and fumbling just once, which Buffalo recovered.
"What a special player," Maye said of Allen on Wednesday. "He's playing at a really high level. It's been fun to watch some of his highlights in some of the games. They've got a lot of prime time games, so anytime Josh is on, I'm a big fan of his, a big fan of his game."
Maye has only crossed paths with Allen a couple of times, but he said that the Buffalo QB is "an awesome dude." He's most impressed with how Allen has turned Buffalo into an annual Super Bowl contender.
"What he's done for Buffalo and how they embrace him is pretty cool and pretty admirable," said Maye.
Drake Maye says don't compare him to Josh Allen -- yet
It's hard not to see a lot of Allen in Maye. Both are big quarterbacks -- Allen is 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds while Maye is 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds -- with booming arms and dangerous legs.
Maye is flattered to hear such a comparison, but says that he doesn't measure up to the seven-year veteran. At least not yet.
"I think I've got a long way to go. What a player he is, playing at an MVP level. I think the biggest thing is just the progression he's made," said Maye. "I think what he dealt with, whether coming out of college or his first years here, I feel like everybody was just kind of not giving him the credit he deserved. Now, you can see kind of the full fruition of what he's doing and the level he's playing at.
"Like I said, he's fun to watch, and I think I've got a long way to go to get to anywhere close to playing at his level," said Maye.
What can Drake Maye learn from Josh Allen?
There was a ton of hype surrounding Allen after Buffalo drafted him seventh overall in 2018. He was a raw talent and made plenty of mistakes over his first two seasons in the NFL, but really rounded into form in Year 3 when he passed for over 4,500 yards and 37 touchdowns.
Maye has shown loads of promise on a bad Patriots team, but he's also made a lot of rookie mistakes. The next step is learning from those mistakes and not letting them turn into bad habits.
On Wednesday, Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo said that Allen's biggest progression has been learning to check down and take "profit" plays rather than always going for the deep pass. He's turned into a true quarterback, taking what the defense gives him to set up those backbreaking deep shots.
It's something that Maye is working on himself and has been much better at in recent weeks. In taking a lot of check-down looks, he completed at least 80 percent of his passes over the last two games.
"I think I've been trying to work on that each and every week as I go on. I think last week was a good testament," Maye said of his 19-of-23 effort in a loss to the Arizona Cardianls. "At some point, you need to take a shot, though, to keep the defense kind of honest. So, I just try to take what they give me.
"I think [offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt] and those offensive guys have done a good job of finding easy completions for me. I think a lot of underneath stuff and letting our guys get the ball and run with it," expanded Maye. "So, I think that's been a huge process for me. Kind of the deeper stuff, I kind of get fooled into taking the deep shot or taking the intermediate shot. I feel like I've done a better job of checking it down or taking the completion. As the year goes on, I think you find that, and trying to find more completions and realize just a completion sometimes is the best play, whether it's a 2-yard gain or a 3-yard gain. I think that gets us better in third-down scenarios where we've been struggling."
On Sunday, Maye will have a front-row seat for what Allen does with the Bills offense. He'll do his best to keep up, and try to learn from one of the best players in the league in the process.
Tune in to Sunday's Patriots-Bills game on WBZ-TV, the flagship station of the New England Patriots. Coverage begins at 11:30 a.m. with Patriots GameDay (which you can also stream on CBS News Boston), kickoff is scheduled for 4:25 p.m., and after the game switch over to TV38 for full reaction and analysis on Patriots 5th Quarter!
