If you wanted to see Drake Maye sooner rather than later this season, you’re getting your wish.

Ian Rapoport had a tweet around 4:00 on Tuesday, reporting that the Patriots have decided to start Maye for the first time against Houston on Sunday afternoon.

There’s no going back now. This is Maye’s team for the rest of the season.

“The future is now in New England: Sources say the #Patriots are planning to start Drake Maye against the #Texans, the first start for the No. 3 overall pick,” wrote Rapoport.  “Jacoby Brissett, who started the first five games, heads to the bench.”

The entire handling of this situation is peculiar.

First, with the media set for its weekly press conference with Mayo on Wednesday and Houston presumably prepping for Jacoby Brissett so far, why not hold the information? Second, the team was off on Tuesday, which means this was leaked to the national media before any formal team meeting. Players are finding out via text or social media like the rest of the world. That’s very inconsistent with how Mayo handled the initial announcement of Brissett starting, when he called an unscheduled press conference and spoke for about a minute after telling the media he wanted to wait and tell the team first.

Now, is it the right decision? Probably. The kid’s got to learn to swim in the deep end at some point. But, why not give him an easier landing spot against an average at best Miami team this past week? Houston is coming off a win where they almost killed Josh Allen (literally) and they’ve been one of the better defenses in the league so far.

Ultimately, Mayo has said this was his decision and his decision only. Frankly, he was probably the only one who wanted to start Maye from the beginning, even saying he won the battle in camp over Jacoby. But, this is not just his decision for it to come so abruptly. Whether the Krafts have chimed in or Eliot Wolf and Alex Van Pelt finally acquiesced and got off their ‘plan,’ this couldn’t have been Mayo’s call only, or it would have happened in September. Could he have finally demanded more respect and a true final say as head coach? Hopefully.

If nothing else, seeing Maye in the throwback Pat Patriot reds on Sunday will get quite a bit of buzz around the stadium and it should be a great atmosphere, but it’s definitely not the best position to drop Maye into.

Regardless of how you feel about it, the Maye era officially starts in five days.