Drake Maye's ascent to stardom is gathering speed as Patriots stack wins

Good news, everyone! The Patriots have a franchise quarterback again! The (very brief) Boston-area nightmare is over!

Drake Maye had yet another strong game on Sunday, leading the Patriots to yet another victory and stacking up yet more social-media-friendly highlight throws. This is becoming a legitimate trend now; New England (4-2) has already won as many games this season as it did in the entirety of 2024. Under the Mike Vrabel regime, Maye and the Patriots are looking comfortable

Hope you enjoyed that brief break, AFC.

The organizational foundations of Maye’s success are visible all around him, starting with the fact the Patriots remade a horrendous, porous offensive line. With time to throw, Maye is throwing.

Observe, for instance, Maye’s performance Sunday in the win over New Orleans as visualized by NFL NextGen Stats. The three blue arcs are touchdowns. (There probably should have been a fourth, as a 61-yard Maye would-be touchdown pass to DeMario Douglas was called back because of a suspiciously ticky-tack OPI call elsewhere on the field.) You’ll note that each of Maye’s touchdown passes traveled more than 25 yards; the precise technical term for that is “slingin’ it.”

Arm talent is a necessary element of a star quarterback, and increasingly, so are rushing explosiveness and general leathery toughness. But Wikipedia’s rundowns of NFL drafts past are littered with names of quarterbacks who had strong arms, piston legs and a whole lot of no-quit.

What differentiates the could-have-beens from the future stars is more ethereal, an ability to visualize both the game and the arc of one’s own career on a broader, more existential level. Seeing the full picture, in other words, and adjusting course accordingly, whether within a play, on a drive, in a game, in the locker room, over the course of a season, or across multiple years.

Most quarterbacks break down at some point along this journey, unable to shoulder the load, unable to inspire others on the journey, unable to rise above challenges that range from charging defensive ends to the looming dread of a career’s end. There’s no shame in falling short, really; everyone this side of Brady, Montana, Marino, Manning and a few others does, eventually. The goal, then, is to see how far up the mountain you can climb.

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Maye already has what it takes — overwhelming physical talent — to start his journey. He’s thrown for more than 200 yards in all six games this season. He’s thrown a touchdown in five, and he hasn’t thrown an interception since Week 3. His passer rating has topped 100 the last five weeks in a row. At this point, not even the University of North Carolina can ignore the fact that he’s one of the best QBs of the early 2025 season.

Now comes the next obstacle: handling adversity, starting with in-game frustrations. Late in the first quarter on Sunday, Maye found Douglas for what sure looked like a spectacular touchdown, called back for offensive pass interference on Stefon Diggs way back upfield:

The call came so late that the Patriots’ extra-point team was already trotting onto the field. But Maye and the offense saddled back up, and six snaps later, found Kayshon Boutte for the first of Boutte’s two touchdowns on the day.

Later in the game, Maye found Diggs for a falling-out-of-bounds 51-yard strike that was called back after Diggs again was tagged for OPI. The legitimacy of both calls is something for Boston talk radio to debate, but Maye’s long-range precision was elite, and his ability to shake off the early frustration, when the game’s outcome was still in doubt, speaks well to his ability to handle the larger burdens that are inevitably coming.

Ecstatic Boston sports fans and fearful AFC East rivals should probably wait until Maye leads New England to, say, a winning season before deeming him an MVP candidate or, worse, a true heir to tom Brady. Maye has a long way to go just to solidify his standing among rookie-contract quarterbacks, much less the best in the game.

Over the next two weeks, Maye will have a chance to — well, we won’t say “pad,” but we will say enhance his stats with games at Tennessee and against Cleveland. Two weeks after that will come one of the season’s unexpected but indisputable highlight games: Maye and New England against Baker Mayfield and Tampa Bay. By then, we’ll have a few more data points on Maye, and he might just be a few further steps up the mountain.