FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The future of the New England Patriots stood wrapped in the past Sunday, red and white from head to toe.

He launched bombs. Skirted around danger. Inspired hope.

Along the way, Drake Maye even made a little history. His pinpoint 40-yard touchdown pass before halftime?

That was the Patriots’ longest completion at home since Christmas Eve two years ago.

A new era, indeed.

But underneath his throwback Pat Patriot uniform, Maye wore increasing shades of black and blue, thanks to a piñata welcome to the NFL.

Maye absorbed four sacks and four more QB hits from the Texans, who also flogged his teammates over a 41-21 finish. Patriots leadership believed Maye’s mobility and confidence would protect him from the punishment they had invited by dropping him behind the league’s worst offensive line.

Instead, Maye’s first few drives looked like Exhibit A for a lawsuit over unsafe working conditions.

Maye got walloped. He threw a pick. He took a sack. He grimaced, as teammates peeled him off the turf after another hit; teammates like center Ben Brown, who signed Thursday and learned he was starting hours just before kickoff, and practice-squad running back Terrell Jennings and offensive linemen Zach Thomas and Demontrey Jacobs, both plucked off the waiver wire.

Everything about the Patriots’ offense felt like a slow-motion car crash you can’t bear to watch, yet can’t look away from. Then, suddenly, Maye veered back onto the road.

He found Kayshon Boutte for Boutte’s first touchdown. He unlocked DeMario Douglas for a career-high 92 yards and his first touchdown. He finished with more yards than any Patriots quarterback has passed for in almost a full year.

In spurts, he thrived. (See, Mac Jones? It wasn’t so hard.)

Maye will inevitably resemble his broken predecessor for a game or two in the coming weeks. He’s a rookie. Rookies throw interceptions, and take sacks and make dumb decisions and turn the ball over as Maye did three times on Sunday.

But hey, where were you at 22?

But if Sunday offered a legitimate peek at Maye’s future — and by extension the Patriots’ — it is even more incumbent on the team to support and protect him. Maye is their ticket back to relevance, let alone contention.

Jerod Mayo and personnel chief Eliot Wolf cannot surrender to circumstance, nor their own failures; namely, poor offensive roster construction and bad injury luck. It’s time to do more. Mayo wisely owned up to his shortcomings and pledged to do just that post-game.

“From a team-wide perspective right now, we let (Maye) down,” Mayo said. “It was his first game, and I feel like I let him down. I’m sure all the coaches feel like we let everyone down. We’ve just got to be better.”

Offensively, the Patriots can start by deploying Douglas on every snap until that 5-foot-9 jitterbug asks for a breather. They cannot afford to substitute Douglas, their best receiver, for Austin Hooper, a journeyman tight end who fumbled on Sunday. That, more often than not, was the trade-off offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt made when calling plays from two-receiver personnel packages.

Even Mayo said Douglas can get open against anyone … a description that unfortunately also seems to apply to any running back who pounds long enough on Mayo’s defense.

The Patriots have allowed more than 190 rushing yards in back-to-back games for the first time in four years. Nose tackle Davon Godchaux fairly described the effort as embarrassing. Worse yet, the Texans and Dolphins both ranked among the league’s worst rushing teams before visiting Foxborough. Not anymore.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” Texans wideout Tank Dell said post-game, “and we know as an offense that we left some points on the board.”

Mayo chalked the Patriots’ defensive failures to bad tackling and fundamentals; two givens in the Bill Belichick era, no matter how far they fell down the standings or how badly they reeked on offense. If that foundation left with Belichick, how can the Patriots support themselves? How can they support Maye?

As Mayo alternated between Maye culpas and Maye praise in his press conference, Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans opined on the rookie’s debut a few doors down.

In doing so, Ryans unintentionally cut to the rub of the Patriots’ situation: how a 22-year-old kid, even in his NFL starting debut, might be of greater service to more than 100 combined teammates and coaches than they are to him.

“Credit to Maye: one thing he does as a quarterback, his escapability is really good for them,” Ryans said. “And I think it’s a positive for him. Like, being able to pull it down and when things aren’t there, being able to make plays on the run; as rushers, you have to be aware that this guy can pull it down and run. … That sets them apart, makes them a little different.”

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