Cam Newton Admits He “Didn’t Protect the Football” With the Patriots While Praising Drake Maye

Even though Week 11 just started, the New England Patriots have already managed to hit the over on their win total for the 2025 regular season. Thanks to a lopsided 27-14 home win against the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football, Drake Maye and Mike Vrabel are officially in possession of a 9-2 record.

To many, it doesn’t seem fair that the Patriots are back to being AFC Championship competitors so soon after the departure of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, but to those like Cam Newton, they are painfully aware of the letdowns that New England had to experience prior to Maye’s breakout campaign.

“I know one thing about Josh McDaniels, while I had my tenure there in New England,” Newton prefaced before jokingly noting that “They value the football. Ball security is job security. If you can protect the football, that puts the team in the best situation possible… I definitely didn’t do that while I was there.”

Much like Maye, Newton’s first season in New England saw him throw for 10 interceptions, but seeing as the Patriots ultimately invested nothing more than a pair of one-year deals in him, they weren’t obligated to keep him around after the former Carolina Panther finished the 2020 season with a 7-8 record.

Maye, on the other hand, was selected with the third overall draft pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, so even after his rookie season resulted in an equally unimpressive 3-9 record, the team was obligated to stick by him, and boy, are they glad that they did. The former Tar Heel has 40 pass completions of 20+ yards throughout the first 11 weeks of his sophomore year, and even though this Sunday’s slate still lies ahead of us, Maye is still leading the league in passing yards as well.

Apart from the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Ravens, there aren’t many challenging matchups left on the Patriots’ schedule. Week 12 will see him travel to Cincinnati to take on a historically bad Bengals defense, and Week 13 will present a porous New York Giants defense.

Throw in the fact that New England will close out the regular season with a pair of divisional match ups against the lowly Miami Dolphins and the same Jets team that they just dismantled on Thursday Night Football, and it seems as if Maye has the perfect opportunity to join Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Dan Marino, and Kurt Warner, as the only quarterbacks to win an MVP award as a sophomore.

As Newton said, “Drake Maye, you’re playing some good ball, man. Keep it up.” After having played two games in the span of five days, the Patriots will now enjoy a few extra days of rest before preparing for their Monday night road game against the Bengals, where they are already being listed as -5.5 point favorites.