Tom Brady has advice for Drake Maye, the Patriots’ next great hope at quarterback.
Surround yourself with the right people and work your you-know-what off. It’s what helped Brady go from a sixth-round pick to one of the great quarterbacks of all time.
“I’m very fortunate to be around him and I like him a lot,” Brady told Yahoo Sports. “I’ve heard great things about him. But his opportunity is going to be really what he makes of it and how he wants to develop it and how he wants to attack his profession — like we all do. It’s not where you’re at when you’re 22. It’s who you’re around when you’re 22. Who inspires you to be better? Who develops you? I was so fortunate. I look at my career, I was looking around at other competitors like Peyton Manning, like Steve McNair, Vinny Testaverde was playing for the [New York] Jets. Brett Favre was playing.”
The Patriots selected Maye third overall out of North Carolina in this year’s NFL draft.
Maye threw 63 touchdown passes and ran for 16 scores as a Tar Heel, finishing fourth in school history in total offense (9,227 yards), fifth in passing yards, fourth in passing TDs and sixth in completions.
The Patriots hope he can help them return to relevance after some down years with Mac Jones, whom they took No. 15 overall in 2021 and traded to the Jaguars three months ago.
Maye has a lot more pressure coming out of college than Brady did.
The way Brady remembers it, the level of quarterbacks in his day was higher, and it forced him to mature fast.
“I was looking around at quarterbacks who were unbelievable,” Brady said. “And I had coaches that were unbelievable. The competition was tough. My coaches were tough. I had to grow and develop. I would want those [young] guys to have the same thing. I just don’t see it the same way that I saw it back then [in my career]. I see a lesser developed player, lesser developed coaches. They’re not teaching anymore. There’s less time to teach. There’s a lot of reasons why. … First of all we’ve got to become aware of it, and then we need to put some things in place to make those changes.”
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