Callahan: Inside Drake Maye’s dinner with Patriots O-line and more Week 11 thoughts

FOXBORO — Welcome to the Friday Five!

Each week during the NFL regular season, I will drop five Patriots-related thoughts on Friday to recap the week that was in Foxboro and look ahead to kickoff.

Ready, set, football.

1. Dinner on Drake

Often during the season, the Patriots’ offensive linemen get together for a Monday night dinner.

It’s a time for them to bond, get away from the grind and talk about things other than football. This week, someone crashed their party: Drake Maye.

The rookie quarterback took his O-linemen out to dinner at a Back Bay steakhouse and picked up the bill. His older brother, Luke, a professional basketball player in Japan who previously starred at the University of North Carolina, also attended. Both were a big hit.

“I used to watch (Luke) on TV when I was in high school,” Pats left tackle Vederian Lowe said. “I was like, ‘Oh s—!'”

Maye and the O-linemen intend to keep their Monday night tradition moving forward.

“We just had a good meal, good conversations,” Pats right guard Mike Onwenu said.

Like most linemen that night, Onwenu ordered the ribeye. Lowe got a New York Strip. Plates of lobster mac and cheese and potatoes covered the table with other appetizers. The Rams and Dolphins played on televisions above, and the linemen peeked above at their next two opponents going head-to-head.

But fresh off their latest win, Maye’s first going wire to wire, the night was about them, and a new tradition.

“It gives us a chance to build more chemistry and a tighter, stronger bond,” Lowe said. “Now I know more about this guy than the heat of the moment, so it brings us more together for whenever times get tough.”

So who gets the bill next week? One well-fed source said it might be time for another rookie: offensive linemen Caedan Wallace and Layden Robinson.

2. Roster changes coming

Christian Barmore’s return to practice Thursday, his first since being diagnosed with blood clots in late July, lifted the team’s spirits this week.

Barmore is a top-5 player on the roster, a core piece of their future. He was the Patriots’ best defender down the stretch last season and became the second-highest paid player in franchise history this spring. It’s unknown if Barmore will be activated off the Non-Football Injury list sometime over the next 21 days, when the Patriots must either add him to the active roster or shelve him for the season.

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But if Barmore does return, the Patriots will first need to clear a roster spot. And before that decision is made, the front office could clear room for young corner Alex Austin, who has less than a week remaining in his own 21-day window, as he continues to practice while on injured reserve.

If Austin is activated, wide receivers Tyquan Thornton and K.J. Osborn appear to be prime candidates for release. The Pats are rostering seven wideouts, and Thornton has been a healthy scratch each of the past two weeks. Osborn was a healthy scratch two weeks ago at Tennessee and ineffective last Sunday.

As for Barmore, the Pats could opt to release a defensive tackle to make room for him. Eric Johnson, a waiver claim from late August, has played just 24 defensive snaps since September and was also inactive the past two weeks.

3. Marcus Jones' big leap

In two of their last three wins, the Patriots defense has played man coverage on more than 60% of passing snaps; an unprecedented rate.

Christian Gonzalez locked down his receivers, but opposite him, there was a surprise. The Pats tasked 5-foot-8 Marcus Jones with shadowing Jets receiver Garrett Wilson, then deployed him as a full-time outside cornerback in Chicago. The results: two allows catches on five targets in man-to-man coverage against the Bears. Jones also had a fourth-down pass breakup to kill a second-half drive.

According to Pats cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino, Jones is the most improved cornerback on the roster. Specifically, his off-man coverage has taken off, and by extension perhaps the staff confidence to play more man-to-man across the board.

"So previous years, (Jones was) just trying to play everything with a little soft jam, right? Match (the receivers') feet, because he's playing to his strength. This year, (he's) changing it up more, doing a great job his off-coverage," Pellegrino said. "From last year's spring to right now, he's gotten significantly better. Significantly better. And I remind him about that all the time.

"Every time he's got a good off-man rep like, hey man, remember when this wasn't great? Great. That's called growth."

4. Patriot pickups

Sometime after every game, the Patriots' staff takes a minute to stop charting plays and personnel groupings and start counting pickups.

The moments when a player was on the ground after a play, and another walked over to pick him up. Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt revealed Thursday his staff has been coaching pickups, and offensive tackle Demontrey Jacobs led the Patriots with 11 last weekend in Chicago. Van Pelt then dropped two more stats from Sunday.

"We had 85 guys that ran to the football to get their guys off the ground. We had 58 different players that got picked up off the ground. I don't know if you see that across the league," he said. "That's something that we take great pride in here to build this culture."

Why is that important to culture?

"There's nothing that frustrates me more than watching guys not pick each other up off the ground. So we ask these guys to be great teammates running the football. When you run the football, good things happen, and then while you're there, let's get our guys off the ground," he added. "We asked the ball carriers, if you're on the ground, stay down. Someone will get you.

"That's the mentality that we have. We play for each other. We call for our brothers in the room."

5. Center's secret talent

In 2012, Patriots center Ben Brown was an eighth-grader at St. Aloysius, a small, private school in Vicksburg, Miss., where grades run 7-12.

Brown loved football and the trombone. On certain game days, he played both.

After dominating for St. Aloyisus' middle school football team, Brown received a late-season call-up to the varsity level. He remembers standing on the sidelines for the first half of three or four games, then hearing the halftime whistle sound. Time to head into the locker room.

But not for him.

A faithful member of the marching band, Brown took the field with his bandmates and played his trombone in full pads.

"We were marching on the field, playing, marching around," he said. "It was pretty fun."

Brown eventually left the marching band to become a full-time varsity starter as a freshman in 2013, but admits he misses music. The trombone lives somewhere in his parents' attic, gathering dust until one day he might find another band.