FOXBORO — To play him or not to play him? That was the question that dominated the summer and early fall for Patriots supporters.

Play Drake Maye to start the season and you run the risk of him being unnecessarily punished behind a patchwork offensive line. You could also subject his confidence to a certain level of rattling if his footwork and pre-snap diagnostic abilities weren’t NFL-ready.

Don’t play with him, you might miss out. The team may wonder why. And the product may be less visible.

The Patriots chose the latter, believing they had a better chance of developing their young passer behind the scenes. And while his rise into the starting lineup may have happened faster than the team’s leadership expected, they still told you that he did indeed become a player while he watched.

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Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt said the 22-year-old Maye was “completely different” than in Week 1 because of some of the things he’s learned since then.

“We had a period yesterday, a fast start period, against our defense, good on good in the red zone,” Van Pelt explained on Thursday. “I didn’t give him an answer to the zero-blitz look the defense presented, and he got himself out of trouble with the right protection adjustment and the right changeup and threw a touchdown.

“To me it was, ‘Wow. OK, he can go in there and protect himself. He knows what calls to make.’ I don’t know if we could have done that in Week 1.”

Veteran wideout Kendrick Bourne also took note of that practice moment.

“It’s exciting,” Bourne said. “He has to operate differently than we do at receiver. We don’t have to worry about that. We have to know our check, our adjustment. But his job is to see everything. He has to see the full picture.” To be able to do that at a young age is definitely impressive. He gives us the best chance to get into the end zone.

“If he can pinpoint where the blitz is coming from, it only helps him make the right decision. And if the play breaks down, his skill also kicks in. It’s impressive that he can do that, and if he doesn’t is,”If he doesn’t play flawlessly (on time), he can come out and scramble, use his legs, use his talent, and that’s how that play worked out yesterday.”

While Maye’s blitzwork is already impressive in both practice and game situations — he had a 92.1 rating against the blitz against the Texans last week — Maye explained Wednesday that his time as Brissett’s backup helped him develop another element of his understand preparation. -snap process to a greater extent.

“I think the biggest thing is the run checks and the different looks that get us into the best run,” Maye said when asked what he can do now that he couldn’t have done in August. “I think that’s the most important thing. Seeing Jacoby (Brissett) do it, watching him do it, and bringing in guys who block the right guys. I feel like that’s something I didn’t really look at until I look at the movie.

“I feel like in the run game I did pretty much everything that was asked and got the right execution. I think that was the biggest sigh of relief when I saw all those different run looks under center, saw it and the boys got blocked, we just have to keep doing that.”

There’s also a preparation piece that Maye has been able to deal with during his time as the team’s No. 2. Van Pelt believes that period of understudy work allowed Maye to develop into his starting role as team leader. de facto leader.