Stephen A. Smith Is Confident Drake Maye’s Patriots Is Not Winning the Super Bowl

The New England Patriots arrive at the Super Bowl after a less-than-impressive run through an AFC uniquely devoid of elite QB talent.

The Patriots beat a Los Angeles Chargers team thanks to the latter’s lack of an offensive line, they beat C.J. Stroud in the midst of one of the worst two-game playoff runs of all-time, and they dodged both Josh Allen and Bo Nix in the AFC Championship Game. Heck, if it wasn’t for a second-half blizzard, they might have even lost to Nix’s backup, Jarrett Stidham.

But after the 10-7 win in the Denver elements, the Patriots have arrived at their first post-Tom Brady Super Bowl. And coming into Super Bowl LX against the Seattle Seahawks, the Patriots are 4.5-point underdogs, the largest spread since the 2015 Super Bowl. Safe to say, people are sleeping on the Patriots. In fact, Stephen A. Smith is snoring.

“Are the Patriots being slept on? Yes, they are. … I’m snoring,” Smith admitted. “I’m sleeping on them big time. Ya’ll ain’t winning the Super Bowl. … You ain’t beating Seattle. The New England Patriots, listen, it was a nice run. It was really, really nice. It’s going to be a competitive Super Bowl, I have no doubt, because the defense is real.”

Stephen A Smith on the Patriots:

🎥: @FirstTake

"I'm snoring. … [The Patriots] aren't winning the Super Bowl."

pic.twitter.com/Pf9LzSgzT5

— Savage (@Savageboston) January 27, 2026

While Smith likes New England’s defense, he believes the offense is very suspect. He says he has “big questions” about that side of the ball. And that’s fair enough. They have given up 3, 16, and 7 points in three playoff games, so the offense hasn’t needed to do much. In fact, they almost blew a couple of those games, turning the ball over five times in the first two rounds.

Even without discussing the fact that the Patriots had the easiest schedule since the 1999 St. Louis Rams (who happened to win the Super Bowl that year), without discussing that injury-plagued Chargers offensive line, without discussing the Texans’ offense without Nico Collins and Dalton Schultz, and without mentioning how a blizzard helped them beat a Bo Nix-less Broncos team.

Even without all of that context, Smith still doesn’t believe in this Patriots offense. He believes that luck has carried the Pats through this campaign. He even jokingly pointed out that the only reason not to sleep on the Patriots was because “clearly divine intervention is shining down upon them.”

“You get luck at the beginning of the season with the schedule, you got lucky as the season went on,” Smith said. “You got lucky in the playoffs against the Chargers, the Texans, and the Denver Broncos. But it ends now. It ends now. I’m tellin’ you right now, I’m snoring, I’m talkin about give me a pillow, let me take a nap. I’m not worried about ya’ll winning this Super Bowl at all! That’s right, I said it!”

Smith went on to point out that Maye has been very subpar through this three-game playoff run as well. He’s completing under 60 percent of his passes, he’s thrown just four TDs to two INTs, and he’s fumbled six times. The defense only recovered three of them, but that’s a problem considering Maye was sacked five times in each of those three playoff games.

The elite Seattle Seahawks defensive front will be licking its chops.