FOXBOROUGH — As rookie quarterbacks attending their first OTAs, there’s plenty of room for Drake Maye and Joe Milton III to grow.
However, in listening to Patriots quarterbacks coach T.C. McCartney before Tuesday afternoon’s practice, it’s clear that a lot of that growth is on the ground level right now. Both Maye and Milton are coming from colleges that didn’t run offenses like New England’s, so they’re familiarizing themselves with the verbiage and concepts.
Though fans crave competition, at this stage of the calendar, these sessions are more instructional than competitive.
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“Drake’s been awesome. He’s eager to learn. He’s been improving every day,” McCartney said when asked about the No. 3 overall pick. “You see it on the field, you see it in the meeting room. So it’s been really good… we’re teaching him a lot of new things — things he didn’t do in college — so there was bound to be pretty quick improvement from Day 1 until now. From the footwork just to understanding what we’re trying to do with these calls.”
Coming from Tennessee, Milton is in the same boat.
“Similar to Drake, in college they weren’t doing anything we were doing,” McCartney said. “He had a little exposure in Michigan early in his career to some of the things we were doing, but from footwork to just understanding how we’re going to call plays and why we’re calling those plays, I think he’s made great strides so far.”
On the field, they’re working on mechanics like timing and footwork, which has been well-documented in Maye’s case. Asked about Milton specifically, McCartney pointed to “tying our eyes to our feet” and delivering passes to the right spot on time.
With both rookies taking on the same course load, McCartney believes it’s really beneficial for the two of them to be experiencing this acclimation to NFL life together.
“I love having two rookies together,” McCartney said. “When I was in Denver we had two rookies in Drew Lock and (Brett) Rypien and they’re able to just feed off one another. They often have the same questions and they’re able to talk about it amongst each other. So I think it’s really good for improvement when we’re not meeting together (too).”
