What should we take from Thursday night’s practice game at Gillette Stadium?

When it comes to New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, we got more than the first week.

Maye showed us glimpses of his talent last night against the Philadelphia Eagles scrubs, leading the Patriots to two scoring drives. He ran a little including for a touchdown, but he had better be careful, more careful than Viking J.J. McCarthy.

He showed a great arm and nice accuracy on a deep pass to Javon Baker who should have caught it laying out. For popcorn’s sake, Javon.

He’ll have to hold onto the snap (one miscue), and with the porous New England porous offensive line, watch his blind side. At least when he took a blind side sack in the third quarter, he held onto the ball. A lot of rookies would’ve lost the ball immediately.

“He had great composure,” Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said. “I thought it was a good drive. I thought he went out there a d did a lot of good things. Hopefully he can build on that and we’ll see how it goes next week.”

Maye completed 6 of 11 for 47 yards and ran 4 times – gulp – for 15 yards and his 5 yard designed TD run that gave the Patriots a meaningless 10-3 halftime lead.

The Patriots are trying to make Maye comfortable. Shotgun. Rollout. Etc.

“It’s very important to do those things,”Mayo said. “Like you said, he did it in college. And the problem is from college to here is just the language. Once you can start to link the language that you learned in college to the language you’re learning right now, the game becomes a little bit easier from an Xs and Os perspective. I look forward to see how he builds off of today. But he did a lot of good things.”

“We go through a list of plays we like, Maye said.

Again, we saw glimpses. We also saw a kid who still doesn’t look ready. Please, please, please, Patriot fans,Maye is not the modern day third overall pick. He was drafted for tomorrow, not today.

That’s what these Patriots are playing for, people. If the Matt Judon trade the other night didn’t tell you that,nothing will. You don’t extend a 32-year old linebacker who missed most of the previous season. As good as a healthy, well rested Judon is, he was part of a desperate Bill Belichick spending spree of the past, not the Eliot Wolf draft and develop future.

“Matt was a big part of our team, a high energy guy,” Patriots linebacker Josh Uche said. “Everybody’s sad to see him go…He’s going to be missed. Guys took a next man up mentality. That’s what he would’ve wanted us to do and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

But they’ll have to get over the trade going forward. A lot was made that when Maye scored his TD, five other rookies were on the field with him. It’s the preseason, so you can get away with that — not so much the regular season. But the inference is clear, as it was when many 20 somethings got contract extensions– youth be served.

So it was time for Maye to be on full display, a quarter and a half.

“Every time you get out there,you get more and more confident,” Maye said. “It’s an awesome opportunity. I had some good things, had some bad plays: droped snaps — inexcusable from me. Other than that, sometimes I felt I was scrambling when I could sti in there, hang on, and tr to make a throw. So, there are definitely a lot of things to learn from.”

Maye got so wrapped up in things he forgot to get the ball he carried in for his first pro TD,but the equipment staff tracked it down.

“I probably need to get a little more excited when good things happen,” Maye said, smiling.

Will good things happen for these Patriots? Not right away. They will draft, then develop, but at some point they’ll also have to win.

But they’re not there yet. Better get used to it, Patriots fans.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.