Drafting Drake Maye feels very much like a Patriots ownership selection, and other thoughts - The Boston Globe (2024)

In the final years of the magnificent, two-decade Tom Brady/Bill Belichick/Bob Kraft championship run, there was a lot of emphasis on legacy, on who would get most credit for nine Super Bowls, six Lombardis, and an unmatched run of NFL dominance.

Once Brady left for Tampa, the Patriots’ narrative pivoted dramatically. Since the beginning of the 2019 season, it’s been all about carving up the blame pie. Who’s most at fault for a 29-39 record in four seasons without a playoff win? Who gets the blame for 4-13 in 2023?

The post-Brady decline of the Patriots gave birth to a wave of books and documentaries, each assigning blame and/or credit to the coach, the owner, and sometimes even the departed GOAT. It got really messy this spring with “The Dynasty,” a Kraft vanity project (described by one wiseguy as RKK’s “home movie”) that pretty much pinned all the bad stuff on the evil Hoodie.

The first big moment of New England’s football rebuild came Thursday night when the Patriots used the third pick of the 2024 draft to select Maye, a 21-year-old North Carolina quarterback with a big arm and lots of energy.

By almost every NCAA measure (always imprecise), Maye was the best quarterback available after Heisman winners Caleb Williams (2022) and Jayden Daniels (2023) were taken 1 and 2, respectively, by the Bears and Commanders.

Maye is without a doubt the safe pick. And it’s clear the Patriots resisted the risky urge to trade down and draft J.J. McCarthy or Michael Penix Jr.

But who made the ultimate decision?

Was it 42-year-old Eliot Wolf, who still does not have the official title of general manager? Was it new coach Jerod Mayo, a former linebacker with zero head coaching experience? Was it a collection of Patriots front office veterans?

My money is on owners Bob and Jonathan Kraft.

There’s much ambiguity regarding who is running the team these days, and the Patriot Media Cartel has been working overtime to assure us Jonathan Kraft — an obvious candidate to take over now that Belichick has been fired — is not calling the shots.

Sorry. Not buying.

Maye feels very much like an ownership selection. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Most likely we’ll never know (like the Malcolm Butler question).

Maye is unlikely to be the starter early in the 2024 season. He’ll likely be brought along slowly, studying the craft behind career backup Jacoby Brissett. The Patriots don’t have the O-line protection or offensive weaponry needed to support a kid quarterback.

But make no mistake, as New England’s highest draft pick in 30 years, Maye is the future of the franchise.

If things work out well, the Krafts can rightfully take credit for this selection. But if Maye fails like Tony Eason or Mac Jones, Wolf is teed up to get all the blame. In 2024, this is what has come to be known as the Patriot Way. Nobody cares about PR the way the Patriots care about PR.

The Globe’s Nicole Yang on Thursday asked, “Eliot, how would you characterize the Krafts’ influence throughout this process?”

“They’ve been very supportive throughout,” said Wolf. “It helps that Jerod and I have been on the same page for almost everything so far . . .

“We’re all working together. It’s not just Jerod and I. Obviously, Matt Groh, Alonso Highsmith in my department, and a bunch of other people that are working their tails off. Richard Miller, Brian Smith, Steve Cargile. We’re all working together and we’re all excited about the opportunity that’s presented to us.”

At this hour, they love The Drake.

The Krafts had no comment. Bob is expected to be on the Gillette field for a photo op with Maye on Friday, but the Globe was told ownership will not be taking questions.

▪ Quiz: Jayson Tatum has made more playoff 3-pointers than any other Celtic. He had 224 coming into this spring. Name four other Celtics who made 200 postseason threes (answer below).

▪ The Red Sox starting rotation has been outstanding thus far (1.73 ERA through 23 games), but at what cost? According to stat man Bill Chuck, Sox starters went into Thursday having thrown only 192 four-seam fastballs, by far the fewest in MLB. The average MLB team had thrown 675 four-seamers.

Meanwhile, four of Boston’s six starters — Lucas Giolito, Nick Pivetta, Garrett Whitlock, and Brayan Bello — were on the IL a week before the end of April. Is it possible that all this breaking stuff takes a toll? Or is this just bad luck?

▪ Remember this, Sox fans: Wilyer Abreu is a Chaim Bloom acquisition.

▪ When things are easy, nobody looks better than the Celtics. How do we like them in close games?

▪ Has there been an NBA champion with three players who were teammates on an NCAA champ? The 2023-24 Knicks have Jalen Brunson, Donte DiVincenzo, and Josh Hart, who won a championship together at Villanova in 2016.

The Celtics for many years had Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, who won back-to-back NCAAs for San Francisco. Celtic champions John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried were teammates on Ohio State’s 1960 NCAA champs. Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Lucius Allen won two NCAA championships at UCLA and the NBA title with the Bucks in 1971. Others?

▪ Hope you were watching when the Knicks stunned the 76ers at Madison Square Garden Monday night. It was an instant classic, even if the NBA admitted that officials missed a couple of calls that badly burned Philadelphia. If the Celtics play the Knicks in the conference finals, who gets to write “Tom Thibodeau, the Salem State Years”?

▪ Love the new nickname for Brian Scalabrine: Code Red.

▪ Bert Bell, father of former Patriots general manager Upton Bell, invented the NFL draft in 1936, and the initial meat market was staged at the Ritz-Carlton on South Broad Street in Philadelphia on Feb. 8. Back in ’36, it was just nine NFL reps (Bell was there as owner of the Eagles) in a hotel room, and the 2-9 Eagles had the first pick, who turned out to be University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger, who wanted too much money ($1,000 per game!) and opted for a career as a foam rubber salesman.

Bell went on to become the NFL’s first commissioner in 1946 and incorporated television into the NFL landscape.

▪ See-no-evil Channel 4 and the Patriots have renewed their partnership through the 2030 season. Oh, joy! Another six seasons of hard-hitting stuff from Soldiers Field Road.

▪ Someday, when he is managing in a new location, Alex Cora is going to admit he was trolling us with some of the lineup choices he’s made with his depleted (and abandoned by ownership) roster. My favorite was Pablo Reyes taking over for Triston Casas at cleanup in Pittsburgh.

▪ Turnover Dept.: Barcelona native Jordi Fernández is the Nets’ fifth head coach since Kenny Atkinson was fired during the 2019-20 season.

▪ Tyler Kepner of The Athletic notes that there have been 448 sets of brothers to play major league baseball, but Al and Mark Leiter are the first set to produce MLB sons — Mark Jr., a Cubs reliever, and Jack (No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 draft), who made his major league debut for the Rangers last Friday (Jack Leiter was optioned back to Triple A after a rough outing).

▪ Will the Orioles have the American League Rookie of the Year for a second straight season? It was Gunnar Henderson last year (Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman was runner-up in 2022) and now — while second baseman Jackson Holliday is off to a rough start — keep an eye on outfielder Colton Cowser, who knocked in 10 runs when the Orioles swept the Sox at Fenway earlier this month.

▪ According to ESPN, 14 of Deion Sanders’s scholarship players have entered the transfer portal since the spring window opened. That’s on top of the 12 who put their names into the database between November and March. Must be time for “60 Minutes” to do another shameless puff piece on Coach Prime.

▪ Sean McDonough is one of the best play-by-play guys of all time, and it’s a treat to hear him doing Bruins playoff games for ESPN.

▪ Red Sox Nation was stunned last weekend by the sudden loss of 54-year-old Dave McCarty, who died of a heart event in California a week after being in Boston to celebrate with his 2004 teammates.

McCarty didn’t play a huge role with the ‘04 Sox, but he was a wonderful guy who had a couple of interesting appearances that season.

When the Sox were smoked by the Jays, 10-5, in their home opener, new manager Terry Francona was hooted for using first baseman McCarty on the mound in the ninth inning. Some fans felt the novice skipper must be unprepared if he has a position player pitching in the first home game of the season.

In midseason, the lefthanded McCarty played second base as part of Francona’s five-man infield in the infamous July 1 loss at Yankee Stadium (the night Derek Jeter dived into the stands while Nomar Garciaparra sulked on the Boston bench).

▪ Quiz answer: Paul Pierce (219), Marcus Smart (208), Jaylen Brown (206 coming into this spring), and Ray Allen (206). In 164 playoff games, Larry Bird “the 3-point king” made 80 3-pointers out of 249 attempts.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.