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Who does New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye remind you of?
Entering his sophomore NFL season, Maye has Patriots fans excited. The soon-to-be 23-year-old (August 30) is undoubtedly the face of a fresh optimism in New England that’s directly tied to the dawn of the Mike Vrabel era.
Ultimately, no matter how well Maye plays in a Patriots uniform, he’ll struggle to escape the shadow of Tom Brady. For Maye to be successful, he’ll need to carve out his own identity in New England and avoid comparisons to the greatest quarterback of all time.
It’s still super early in Maye’s career, but The Ringer’s Bill Simmons threw out a couple of different comparisons for Maye on Sunday during a new episode of “The Bill Simmons Podcast”.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Simmons warned his audience. “I don’t wanna scare you, because I like Drake Maye. He’s got a little young Carson Wentz to his game. Remember when Carson Wentz was good, you know … MVP candidate, and you saw the highs, but there would be a couple plays every game where you’re like, ‘Dude … what was that? Yeah, don’t do that.’ (Maye’s) got a little bit of that.”
“But I have a Drake Maye stat you’re gonna love,” Simmons continued. “There’s this stat I like called ‘success rate’. All it looks at is when a guy drops back, was it a positive play for the offense, or a negative play? So … a 50-yard completion is treated the same as a 12-yard completion, but it’s just good for like, ‘how consistent is this guy?’”
Simmons then noted that Maye’s success rate should have Patriots fans feeling good.
“If you look at every rookie quarterback over the last 10 years, he (ranked) fourth out of 31 rookie quarterbacks … in success rate last year,” Simmons said.
Simmons also pointed out Maye’s elite speed at the position, which led Simmons to bring up the reigning NFL MVP.
“I don’t think people realize how fast he is … They ran one play in the preseason where they did the classic video game play. They sent the receivers out and cleared out a side of the field, and he ran, and … he is an unbelievable athlete. Could he be like mini Josh Allen someday? I don’t know. But I think they’re gonna be taking advantage of the legs.”
If Maye ultimately turned into some version of Allen, and thus became capable of winning league MVP, Patriots Nation would be overjoyed. For now, Maye should focus on making the simple play, limiting his turnovers, and managing wins for a rising Patriots squad.
