Drake Maye, Pretender or MVP?

The NFL season is a couple weeks from wrapping up, with a number of quarterbacks rising to superstardom this year. Especially, as it may seem, in New England, where second year man Drake Maye has lit up the leaderboards. He lead his team to a 14-3 record in the regular season and a deep playoff berth, only two days away from a semi-final match against Denver. However, Drake’s MVP candidacy worthy season has him under much heavier scrutiny than usual. Today, I want to take a look at just who those 14 regular season wins came up against, and see if Drake ‘The Schedule’ Maye is a fair name to plaster him with.

Funny enough, the Patriots opened the season in rather unassuming fashion, starting with a loss at home to a Las Vegas Raiders team that were so bad, they’re now top of the draft rights after just three wins all year. A disappointing start overall, the opening four games only had New England at 2-2, but nothing quite pushes past the notion of losing to a team that wound up being the very worst of the bunch. After that though, Drake and his boys turned it around. Big time. They then went on to win ten straight against some… well, I’ll stop myself right there.

You see, Drake’s newest ‘nickname’ hasn’t quite come out of nowhere. That run of wins is coming up against teams that even by the midway point of the season, the Patriots were well above. As a matter of fact, out of all of those wins, how many do you think came against a team with a winning record? That’s correct.

(photo credit here!)

One.

The Patriots picked up wins against exactly one team with a winning record all season. The Buffalo Bills in Week 5. Oh but that isn’t all. The Patriots faced the Bills twice. And they didn’t even win both. The split the series against the Bills, and wound up 14-3 at the end of the season. Which means, you can use the perspective that New England couldn’t stay atop a single positive team in their entire 14-3 season. But that’s not to say they didn’t do anything of note, a fair few of these wins are measured and assured. A controlled demolition of a very impressive Carolina team (I know that’s my team, I’m not biased.) and some very impressive dominant wins against New York’s two teams, Cleveland and Tennessee. Are those great teams? No, not even slightly. But, they sure are big and impressive wins.

Now, knee deep in the playoffs and knee deep in MVP talk, Drake Maye’s name is being discussed as a candidate to win a Super Bowl and take home MVP in his second season of NFL football. The question is, did he have it too easy? Decide for yourself, but if you were to ask me? I’m waiting for a true world-beating performance from Drake. Does he have it in him? I hope so, the NFL’s next generation of great quarterbacks need to come in now while the water is warm from all of the biggest stars winding down. So, to Drake Maye, Bryce Young (not biased), CJ Stroud, Cam Ward and Fernando Mendoza, your time is now. Take your spot! Discussions like these happen week after week with me around on NR92, tune in for insight as deep and totally and completely unbiased.

(COVER PHOTO CREIDT HERE)

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