Admit it, you were worried in the beginning.

Maybe even a little bit at halftime.

But the NFL is a quarterback league, and you could see Drake Maye vs. Dillon Gabriel meant absolutely no shot Sunday for the Cleveland Browns,who lost 32-13.

None.

In fact, one had to be wondering when some smart fans in the stands might begin mockingly chaniting “Zappe! Zappe!” for the Browns’ backup and former Patriots starter from Bill Belichick’s crawl to the finish line here. He was No.2 on Cleveland’s depth chart as Shedeur Sanders was suffering from a bruised ego, oops, sore back.

Browns coach Kevin Stefanski must be thinking a couple things: One, “I had Baker Mayfield five years ago and made the playoffs. How did i end up with this?”

“Every position you have to look at ” Stefanski said. “But let me say that with a young quarterback,you understands there’s going to be ups and downs…are we doing enough with the quarterback position, do we need to do a better job, and I think i know the answer is yes.”

And he knew that that probably before the Patriot fans were chanting “MVP! MVP!” for the guy on the other side, Maye. He was magnificent in the second half after struggling through much of the first. The deep ball TD throw to Kayshon Boutte in the third quarter yesterday was simply a thing of football beauty.

Maye didnt hear the chants because his teammates were making fun of his awkward slide on an earlier play. As Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said afterward, “We’ve got to send him to Spring Training and figure out when to slide and continue to talk about that. I’ll do my best there.”

But in reality, there’s not much else that needs to be done. This is just the difference that good coaching with talent can do. Maye is the real deal, he’s being taught by people he knows are truly in charge, people he respects.

The Patriots offense produced 424 net yards, just a little over half of that in the second half. Three possessions in the third quarter and three TDs after settling for field goals in the first half. As receiver Pop Douglas said, “We just need that one play, and we start doing our thing.”

Their thing is Maye putting the ball usually where no one other than his receivers can catch it. And when there’s space to escape the pocket or just no one open, he runs — 50 yards yesterday,almost a third of a 179-yard ground game — even though all of New England holds its collective breath. “That,” Vrabel said, “has to be part of who we are.”

The Patriots decided to open things up in the second half and it worked.

“I know there’s so much more to improve, but we got stops in the second half, and we scored touchdowns,” Vrabel said. “That’s what the difference in the game was…”

Eventually in most NFL games,the talent takes over. And the Patriots have talent. The good days are back, and with the lousy Atlanta Falcons here next Sunday, they aren’t going away anytime soon.

It’s Vrabel’s show. He had the players introduced separately before the game, and the players loved it.

So did the fans. The upper deck still needs work,but far better than last year. And the stands as a whole were half empty midway through the fourth quarter, not because the Patriots were way behind, but way ahead.

“You can see the difference from last year to this year,” Maye said. “Man, it’s been a journey.”