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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Drake Maye’s arrival in New England coincided with a wholesale reset for the Patriots franchise following the departure of coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Mac Jones this past offseason. In his eight starts since assuming the reins from veteran Jacoby Brissett, the rookie quarterback has provided encouraging examples of what the Patriots’ revamped front office saw in selecting him third overall in the draft last April. While the Patriots enter their bye week with a 3-10 record and just 2-6 with Maye as the starter, both the coaching staff and his teammates feel they have a quarterback they can build around going forward. “I’m just trying to take it one day at a time, one game at a time,” Maye said this week. “I’m trying to learn from negative experiences or negative plays, learn from turnovers, learn from sacks that I take and see if I can get the ball out and do something better. That’s probably the biggest thing. "Hopefully, the work that we’re putting in and the product that we’re putting out can lead to some positive plays and some positive wins down the road.” Maye is coming off his best statistical performance of the season, completing a season best 80% of his passes (24 of 30) for a season-high 238 yards and a touchdown in New England’s 25-24 loss to Indianapolis. He also had a 41-yard run, showing off a running ability that has him averaging 9.1 yards per carry – best among quarterbacks who have played at least nine games. Maye did have one interception off a tipped ball, but showed his best command of offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt’s scheme to date, spreading the ball around to six different players and consistently getting the Patriots into the red zone. The rub is that the Patriots were just 2 of 6 once they got there, including four trips inside the 10-yard line that yielded only one TD. Lackluster play in the red zone has been a hindrance for a unit that ranks 30th in the NFL in scoring touchdowns inside the 20. Maye said it will be one of his main focal points over the final four games. “It’s tough to go out like that,” Maye said. “You can’t win games going four drives in the red zone that end in field goals. We’ve got to focus in on that. I think that’s been an emphasis of improvement for this offense. We know you have to score touchdowns to win in this league.” Though coach Jerod Mayo agrees there is room for improvement for Maye, he also pointed out that the pieces around him need to do a better job supporting him as well. He pointed specifically to the offensive line, singling out rookie left guard Layden Robinson and rookie tackle Caedan Wallace, as well as fellow lineman and 2022 first-round pick Cole Strange, who is working his way back from a knee injury. “You need a guy like Layden Robinson to show what he can do. We need a guy like Cole Strange before the end of the season to see what he can do,” Mayo said. “You can use Caedan in that same bucket. We need to see what the receivers can do and what they’re going to look like going forward, and that’s the hard part for me. You want to win right now, but at the same time, I think it would be a disservice to go to the end of the season and not know exactly what we have.” That’s not lost on Robinson, who wants to play better for his quarterback who he said has grown exponentially as a leader since earning the starting job. “He always has that confidence about him and you know how he takes control of the huddle,” Robinson said. “He gets in there, and he’s like, ‘All right, let’s go to work,’ basically. We rally behind him.” Results aside, Van Pelt said there are no regrets about initially waiting to elevate Maye to the starting job. “Absolutely not. I think we had the plan going into place, and I think that it’s showing now that that was a good decision for us,” Van Pelt said. “Would he be as developed had he started the first game? Maybe. Could’ve gone the other way as well. I stated in the spring, this is a marathon, it’s not a sprint. "This is about a career, franchise quarterback, and we’re trying to develop him in the right way. And I feel like we did it that way.” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflLyse Doucet: Nowhere else on Earth are so many children on the runFBI urges iPhone and Android users to ditch texting and opt for certain app instead after spike in hacks

(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s largest banks all are poised to pay their employees more in variable compensation for 2024, with stock-market favorites Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and National Bank of Canada increasing bonus pay the most. The country’s Big Six lenders set aside 12.2% more on average in fiscal 2024 compared with the previous year, with bonus pay rising across the board despite a generally challenging environment for dealmaking and capital markets during the year. While there was decent activity in debt capital markets this year, there was a dearth of Canadian initial public offerings — a dry spell that finally ended when Groupe Dynamite Inc. went public last month — and mergers and acquisitions were muted for most of the year. Still, that didn’t lead to a wave of job cuts, said Bill Vlaad, managing partner and chief executive officer of Toronto-based recruitment firm Vlaad & Co. “We haven’t had a bloodbath in 2024,” he said. “Things haven’t been good, but there’s been really good management of personnel. Yes, there’s been some cleaning up and yes, there’s been a little restructuring, but for the most part it hasn’t been catastrophic.” Incentive pay at Canadian banks is based on performance, and the figures the firms report in their quarterly filings reflect the amount reserved, not paid out. The fiscal year ended on Oct. 31, but bonuses are typically distributed in December. The trend in Canada echoes what bankers south of the border are expecting. Investment bankers, traders and asset- and wealth-management professionals are all poised to see increases in year-end incentive pay reaching into the double digits, according to a report last month from Johnson Associates Inc. Bankers who help companies sell debt may see the biggest gains, with payouts set to rise as much as 35%, the compensation consultant said. Variable compensation is particularly important to capital-markets professionals — including investment bankers, analysts, salespeople and traders — who typically count on a large portion of their take-home pay coming from bonuses. But employees in other divisions, such as wealth management, insurance and asset management, also receive incentive pay on top of their base salaries. RBC, CIBC, National Bank Bonus pay at Royal Bank and CIBC increased by 16.2% and 19.1%, respectively, in 2024. While Royal Bank’s dominant capital-markets franchise saw profit increase by more than 10% last year, net income at CIBC’s equivalent unit was little changed. Canada’s fifth-largest bank has been on a winning streak in recent quarters, however, with its stock routinely hitting new all-time highs on strong financial performance. “We pay competitively and have a pay-for-performance philosophy that aligns compensation to our bank’s financial and non-financial performance,” CIBC spokesperson Tom Wallis said in an email, adding that non-financial metrics including environmental, social and governance progress are also a factor. Royal Bank Chief Executive Officer Dave McKay cited the bank’s strong capital-markets results on an earnings call this week and noted the lender has a “robust pipeline that continued to build as we progressed through 2024.” National Bank, which has also enjoyed a run-up in its shares for most of the year and is poised for growth if it completes its acquisition of Canadian Western Bank as planned, increased bonus pay by 13.9% during the year. Its capital-markets business saw profits increase about 19% in fiscal 2024. “Our variable compensation is in line with revenue growth and the solid performance of our teams across business lines,” spokesperson Alexandre Guay said. BMO, Scotiabank Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia both boosted the size of their bonus pools — with increases of 5.1% and 4.2%, respectively — despite capital-markets profit declining at both companies. The slump at Bank of Montreal was largely due to higher provisions for potentially bad loans — an issue that has plagued the bank overall — while Scotiabank said in its latest quarterly report that profit at its capital-markets business slipped on higher expenses. “Our compensation framework is designed to deliver long-term shareholder performance, is a reflection of business results and is competitive with the market,” said Bank of Montreal spokesperson Jeff Roman. Scotiabank employees are its “most important asset and recognizing them through performance-based compensation is one of the many ways we reward their valued contributions,” Chief Financial Officer Raj Viswanathan said. “This year’s all-bank performance-based compensation reflects early progress against our strategy amidst continued challenging market conditions, and confidence in our execution,” he said, referring to a strategy the bank put in place about a year ago. Toronto-Dominion Bonuses were up a healthy 10.2% at Toronto-Dominion Bank, despite a rough year for the lender, which reached a $3.1 billion settlement with US authorities over money-laundering charges in October. It said Thursday it’s suspending its guidance on growth as it undertakes a sweeping business review. Still, on the capital-markets front, the bank is enjoying momentum following its takeover of US investment bank Cowen Inc. But its 45% profit increase for the division is outsize partly because last year’s figure included significant costs related to the Cowen integration. “This year’s incentive compensation reflects a combination of factors including year-over-year annual salary increases and higher business specific incentives reflecting strong performance in wholesale banking (including a full fiscal year of TD Cowen) and wealth management,” spokesperson Elizabeth Goldenshtein said in an email. --With assistance from Melissa Shin. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.Blue Square X Expands Art Curation Services at Art Basel Miami