After an underwhelming start to his professional career, Drake Maye now finds himself enjoying a breakout sophomore campaign for the ages. The 23-year-old is currently leading the league in passing yards and completion percentage, outshining the remaining 31 QBs from other teams. And that’s resulted in a 10-game win streak for Mike Vrabel and the New England Patriots.
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Fans and analysts alike can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to likening this regular season to the start of the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick dynasty that tormented the league for the better part of the last two decades. After all, it’s hard to ignore the parallels, especially when the former Tar Heel is openly admitting to stealing Brady’s old plays and concepts.
“Watching old plays and installing old plays that they ran, it’s one of the coolest things that we do,” Maye noted while speaking with ESPN NFL. “It’s cool to watch that position and know that I’m playing in the same offense (that Brady played), calling some of the same play calls that he called, and playing for the same offensive coordinator,” he outlined.
Maye’s passer rating of 111.9 is also the highest one in the league heading into Week 14, and that’s helped to make him the current betting favorite to win the regular-season MVP award. Thanks to their Monday night drubbing of the New York Giants, the Patriots themselves are now being given the sixth-shortest odds of winning the Super Bowl.
Likewise, a three-game lead over the Buffalo Bills has made them the runaway favorites to claim their first AFC East championship since 2019. Suffice to say, all trends are pointing up for Maye and the Patriots, and while their strength schedule is still widely contested, they have a pair of formidable matchups coming out of the bye next week.
In Week 15, they’ll be tasked with hosting a Bills team that will be excited for a chance at revenge that could also shorten their divisional odds. In Week 16, they will travel to meet an even more desperate Baltimore Ravens team, one that is currently trying to save its season after Lamar Jackson was forced to miss several weeks with a misdiagnosed hamstring injury.
Both of those combatants could easily prove to be the Patriots’ toughest foe to date, so the folks up in Foxborough would be well advised to hold off on any celebrations until the end of the regular season. Then again, should Maye somehow manage to overcome both of them, then he’d be able to give New England its first 13+ win season since 2017, back when Brady was in the midst of taking them to three consecutive Super Bowls, and that would certainly be worth a party or two.
Then again, this is title town, and now that the Patriots have practically guaranteed a playoff spot for themselves, they’ve got bigger, much shinier things on their mind.
