New England Patriots - NESN.com
If he wasn’t already being taken seriously as an NFL MVP candidate heading into Week 8 against the Cleveland Browns, New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye certainly is now.
Following another electric performance on Sunday during the Patriots’ fifth straight win, Maye leads the league in passer rating and completion percentage and is ranked inside the top five in adjusted QBR (fourth), passing yards (fifth) and a host of other categories.
ESPN national NFL analyst Ben Solak wrote on Tuesday that Maye is the NFL MVP for the first half of the season.
“It is critical to understand just how much Maye is carrying here. Detractors highlight a soft schedule of opposing defenses. But in obvious pass situations, there is no quarterback playing better. On plays with an NFL Next Gen Stats pre-snap pass probability of 75% or higher — plays in which the defense is expecting pass, and dialing up blitzes and coverage rotations and other shenanigans — Maye is first in EPA per dropback, second in success rate and second in passer rating,” Solak said. “For now, Maye might fit the traditional argument. He is among the league leaders in dropback EPA and is piloting the 6-2 Patriots in the race for the No. 1 seed. But Maye will be very high on my (fictional) MVP ballot when the season ends not for those reasons — but rather for how much he’s doing with how little he has at his disposal.”
Other MVP frontrunners entering Week 9 include quarterbacks Dak Prescott, Daniel Jones, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes.
Solak noted that recent history helps Maye’s case for the hardware as well.
“Often, the MVP is handed to the quarterback of the team that won the most games. Fourteen of the past 15 MVP winners have been quarterbacks, and 11 of them from the top seed of their conference,” he wrote. “This is an unfortunate consequence of the ever-putrefying state of quarterback discourse, in which any passer with 300 passing yards must have played well, and certainly the winning quarterback outplayed the losing one in any given game.”
The Patriots signal-caller led his team a huge Week 5 upset of Allen and the Buffalo Bills, leaving New England as a decent bet not only to win the AFC East, but possibly earn the conference’s top seed for the playoffs.
The Patriots won’t face Prescott’s Dallas Cowboys, Jones’ Indianapolis Colts or Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs in the regular season, but have a huge rematch with Allen and the Bills in Week 15.
A lot could happen between now and then, but that divisional clash could play a huge part in determining the MVP favorite and potential No. 1 seed in the AFC.
