Drake Maye’s debut reinforces why Matthew Stafford won MVP

Drake Maye could have won last season's MVP trophy if he had received just one more first place vote, but the Patriots quarterback's poor play on Wednesday night against the Seahawks only reinforced why he was not in the same class as winner Matthew Stafford . Maye was at his absolute worst in the NFL's first game of 2026, throwing three fourth quarter interceptions, including the game-loser, as New England left the door open to blow a 10-point lead to Seattle and drop the game 13-10.

It would be one thing if this was just one bad start by a great quarterback — Stafford will have bad games too — but it's really more that Maye was left exposed again and hasn't really performed at a replacement level since last year's playoffs began. That's when the Patriots stopped facing the easiest schedule that any team had faced in over 20 years and had to start putting up points against team that have good defenses.

As of Wednesday's loss, the Patriots are 0-12 with Drake Maye in the regular season against teams that have a winning record.

Again, just a vote separated Maye and Stafford in the MVP race. A vote.

After completing over 72% of his passes in the regular season with a 113.5 passer rating, Maye faced four of the best defenses in the NFL in the playoffs: The Chargers, Texans , Broncos, and Seahawks.

He completed just 58.3% of his passes and had a passer rating of 82.2. Maye was sacked an NFL playoff record 21 times and threw four interceptions and fumbled seven times. In the Super Bowl, Maye threw for 295 yards, but much of that came in garbage time after Seattle had built a 29-0 lead. He threw two interceptions, lost a fumble, and was sacked six times.

Now compare that to Matthew Stafford in three games against the Seahawks last year:

Over 9.5 yards per attempt in his most recent two games

Facing the Seahawks on Wednesday, a defense that didn't have star nickel Nick Emmanwori or starting strong safety Ty Okada , Maye went 0-of-4 on passes over 20 yards with three interceptions, and 3/9 passing on throws over 10 yards:

He was a check down charlie and this all came after an entire offseason spent by New England of trying to build an offense around Maye that would finally click against better teams, not just the Jets and Dolphins. That included upgrading the offensive line with signings like Alijah Vera-Tucker, and bringing in new weapons like A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs .

And although Brown did leave the game in the second half with an ankle injury, Maye still wasn't playing that well before he got hurt. Basically A.J. Brown was the offense prior to his injury, not Drake Maye.

It is also true that Doubs dropped an easy pass that should have been a big gain for Maye. But when is Maye going to pick up the offense? He's supposed to be a dual threat quarterback and an accurate passer with a big arm, that's why the Patriots drafted him third overall in 2024. At times, he's even lived up to it. Or appeared to.

But at no point last season did it really feel like he belonged in the MVP conversation. Not against the easiest schedule in the NFL.

So it's fine to say that you like Drake Maye as an up and coming player (I do), or that the Patriots had lesser weapons and offensive support around the quarterback last season than the Rams (they did), but "MVP"?

Albert Breer voted for him . Gregg Rosenthal said Maye should be the MVP. Field Yates called Maye the MVP, as did most of ESPN. And almost 50% of the AP's panel of 50 writers who vote for MVP and other awards picked Maye.

It's hard to believe that almost happened and would have been the only reason Stafford didn't get his only MVP award so far. Because of Drake Maye and the easiest schedule in the NFL.

Wednesday just reinforced why the AP and the NFL got so lucky that it didn't.