How Patriots QB Drake Maye took a Year 2 leap, became an MVP candidate: It ‘was Brady-like’

Drake Maye was in the shotgun, both hands in the pockets of the warmer he was wearing, hardly concerned about what the defense was showing him.

It was “Monday Night Football,” a prime-time showcase on the first day of December, and the 23-year-old quarterback looked relaxed.

It was the fifth offensive snap of the game against the New York Giants, and the Patriots had called a play Maye had watched Tom Brady run countless times. Brady once estimated he threw for 7,000 career yards on this play alone. HOSS Z-juke. A Josh McDaniels staple.

It’s the kind of play McDaniels, the team’s offensive coordinator, taught Maye on their first day together — long before the Patriots’ incredible rejuvenation this season seemed possible. He then reinforced its effectiveness with videos of Brady doing it over and over.

When Maye got the snap, he looked to his left, pretending he was going to throw it there, just to get the defense to move. Then he hit Stefon Diggs on the right, on the same route Julian Edelman and Wes Welker used to run, for 13 yards.

In the micro sense, it was a small moment. A first down on the opening drive of another New England win this season. But in the bigger picture, that play — and that whole night — was emblematic of the massive strides Maye took in his second NFL season. Of the way he became the engine that powered the NFL’s greatest one-year turnaround.

Maye is now an MVP candidate. He broke Brady’s franchise record for completion percentage in a season and became the youngest player ever to lead the NFL in that statistic. He was one of the two most important people in flipping the Patriots from a 4-13 disaster to a 14-3 powerhouse set to host the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

As one former NFL general manager texted after Maye threw for 282 yards and two touchdowns in that Giants game, “That was Brady-like.”

Maye’s rookie season was filled with glimpses of the upside that made him the No. 3 overall pick in 2024. But there was also enough that went wrong to wonder if it might be more realistic to temper expectations. He finished his rookie season with 10 interceptions and nine fumbles in 12 starts.

The story of how Maye got to this point — after one of the biggest Year 2 jumps we’ve ever seen — certainly should give plenty of credit to Maye himself. He was always talented, with a live arm, and has worked incredibly hard to become the player he is.

For it to happen this quickly, however, speaks to the fast-track PhD in quarterbacking that McDaniels and head coach Mike Vrabel have given him. Their plan was pretty simple. McDaniels handled the X’s and O’s. Vrabel worked with him on being a leader.

From McDaniels, he learned the intricacies of schematics. Why Brady was able to be so decisive. What to do in certain situations. How to read a play. From Vrabel, a master class in leading a team. A focus on the importance of celebrating with his teammates. On being one of the guys. On knowing when and how to speak up.

Nine months into that plan, Maye is arguably the best quarterback in the NFL. This season, he led the league in completion percentage (72.0), yards per attempt (8.9), adjusted QBR (77.2) and passer rating (113.5).

“There is nobody else that we would want as our quarterback,” Vrabel said.

McDaniels meets with Maye every week. Just the two of them. It’s a chance to vent. To go over plays that worked (and, crucially, ones that didn’t). And to game-plan together.

McDaniels pulls up plays from the Patriots’ glory days, when every season was Super Bowl or bust, and breaks down what Brady was thinking in the moment, what he was reading on the play.

But it was important to McDaniels that their relationship wasn’t only about football. After McDaniels was hired for his third stint with the team, he FaceTimed Maye.

“He was in his office, obviously, like he always is,” Maye joked.

But they didn’t talk football.

“A lot of times, everyone is eager to get into the X’s and O’s and terminology when you have a new staff or player, but the biggest thing for all of us in the spring was just getting to know everyone we were going to coach,” McDaniels said.

The football talk came later. McDaniels knew about Maye’s pre-draft scouting reports. But in training camp, he had his first aha moment.

One day earlier, Maye had left a broken pocket and took off scrambling. It went for a nice gain, maybe 8 or 9 yards. But McDaniels wanted more. He told Maye after the practice to keep his eyes downfield. Remain a passer for as long as possible, he said.

At practice the next day, Maye escaped another broken pocket. This time, he kept his eyes downfield. McDaniels noticed DeMario Douglas running alone, some 60 yards downfield, but figured it was too far a throw for Maye to make on the run.

Instead, as Maye neared the sideline, he delivered a strike that landed right in Douglas’ hands.

“I kind of looked around, like, ‘Did anyone else see that?’ Because that was nuts,” McDaniels said later.

Josh McDaniels, in his third stint as offensive coordinator of the Patriots, has played a major role in turning quarterback Drake Maye into a superstar. (Winslow Townson / Getty Images)

Vrabel wanted to work with Maye in a different way.

“Drake is going to be his own person,” Vrabel said at his introductory press conference a year ago, “but I’m going to give him some things that I feel like are necessary to help us win football games.”

When Vrabel and Maye meet, it usually isn’t about schemes or the intricacies of a concept versus a certain defensive rotation.

A couple of weeks ago, as a national debate broke out on the merits of teaching quarterbacks a pure progression against coverage reads, Vrabel was straightforward with his advice for Maye.

“Throw to the guy that’s open in the progression and where that progression takes you,” Vrabel said. “The first one that you see. … I try to keep it as simple as possible.”

Part of the secret to the Patriots’ success, according to some in the building, is that they don’t take themselves too seriously. In fitting with Vrabel’s trash-talking nature, no one is safe from a barb. And, crucially, no one takes offense.

Coaches and teammates can give Maye a hard time, like they do any other player. They poke fun at his seemingly perfect-but-boring life, where he goes home to baked goods from his high school sweetheart-turned-wife and is in bed by 9:30 p.m.

And Vrabel doesn’t treat the quarterback any differently on the practice field, where the coach often lines up with the scout team, talking trash the way he used to with Brady on those same fields.

Part of the trash talk is also to help in coaching Maye. In training camp, when Maye threw a perfect touchdown pass and slowly jogged over to celebrate with his teammates, Vrabel asked Maye how many touchdowns the team scored the year before, then answered his own question: “Not enough.”

It extended to games, too. Vrabel wants the team to celebrate together — and to lift each other up when necessary.

So after Maye threw his second touchdown of the night in that win over the Giants, a beautiful 33-yard toss to rookie receiver Kyle Williams, Maye was standing right on the sideline, rooting on the special-teamers covering the ensuing kickoff.

It has all led to an incredible season, both for Maye and the team. And his coach has made Maye’s MVP case clear.

“He’s been everything that we’ve asked,” Vrabel said, “and he continues to get better. He’s not satisfied. I know that our success, where we are right now, today, has a lot to do with Drake Maye.”