He may not have played his best game of the season on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but Drake Maye once again led the New England Patriots to victory while making several highlight-reel plays. As a consequence, he now can officially call himself MVP frontrunner.
With the first 10 weeks of the NFL season in the books — besides a Monday night game between Green Bay and Philadelphia that projects to only have a minor impact in that regard — Maye has emerged to betting favorite for the league’s
most valuable player trophy. While FanDuel has him tied with the Los Angeles Rams’ Matthew Stafford, several other sportsbooks have him listed as the outright favorite.
Versus the Buccaneers, Maye did help his case — at least relative to previous frontrunner Josh Allen, whose Buffalo Bills suffered an upset loss to the two-win Miami Dolphins on Sunday.
Maye threw an end zone interception in the fourth quarter that negatively impacted his final stat line and completed just over half of his 31 pass attempts, but he also tossed a pair of touchdowns and finished with 270 passing yards and an average of 8.7 yards per attempt. Most importantly, however, he lifted the Patriots past a playoff-caliber opponent and now has them at 8-2 and well-positioned in the race for a playoff spot and their first AFC East title since 2019.
For a team that won just eight games combined over the last two seasons, that is quite the accomplishment. It is precisely why Maye is in the MVP conversation halfway through his sophomore campaign.
And why “MVP!” chants have become a frequent occurrence at Patriots games lately.
On Sunday at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, they broke out after a 54-yard completion from Maye to Mack Hollins in the fourth quarter. And while they died down after his INT — with the exception of some Buccaneers fans mockingly repeating them — they were further proof that his campaign is not a mirage but in fact one that might just end up with the coveted tropy.
Maye himself, meanwhile, took the diplomatic route when asked about the chants during a postgame interview with CBS.
“They may be for Baker [Mayfield],” he said, speaking about the Buccaneers’ quarterback. “Baker played his butt off. Big fan of Baker’s game, and they’re a good football team. But you know, we travel well. That’s the Patriots. That’s us. We’re going to travel every week.”
There is a long way to go before the NFL hands out its awards in early February, but if Maye were to take home the MVP title, he would become the second Patriot to do so. The only other player in franchise history winning the coveted trophy is Tom Brady, who won it on three occasions.
