The second-year jump by Drake Maye is one that will need to be studied for a long time, as the 23-year-old quarterback has ascended to levels nobody could have predicted. He was put into a much better situation going into the 2025 season than in his rookie year, and his performance has consistently broken franchise and NFL records.
It made him one of the top candidates to win the MVP award this season, coming neck-in-neck with QB Matthew Stafford at the very end. And although he likely won't win over the 17-year veteran, he has still been beyond impressive this season, and even broke another record with one of his worst performances on Sunday.
The Texans' defense was predicted to be quite a matchup for Maye and the young offensive line, which is exactly what it was, particularly by recording three strip sacks throughout the game.
Regardless, the quarterback rallied his team to win the game and has now recorded 16 wins this year, with 14 regular-season games and two in the playoffs.
That is good enough to put him in the record books alongside legends like Dan Marino, Kurt Warner, and Russell Wilson.
Drake Maye is in legendary company 🔥
— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) January 18, 2026
With 15 wins, he matches Dolphins' Dan Marino (1984), Rams' Kurt Warner (1999) and Seahawks' Russell Wilson (2013) for most wins in a season by a 1st or 2nd-year QB 👏 pic.twitter.com/25YBMOlpZJ
Even with one of his worst performances of his young career, Maye managed to get the win and added another chapter to his NFL career that the Patriots could not be happier about.
Drake Maye is already proving to be exactly who the Patriots needed to lead their offense
The excitement amongst Patriots fans surrounding Maye has reached a new high after leading the team to the AFC Championship game in just his second season.
If he wasn't already beloved enough, he is now reaching legendary status in the eyes of many fans simply because he's jolted New England back from the dead, all while watching some of their biggest rivals get eliminated from the playoffs.
He is now set to play in the biggest game of his career next Sunday, and he will need to have a much better day than he did against the Texans. The turnovers are a problem, and it will be even worse against a group like the Broncos, so we'll need to see him dialed in much sooner than this week.
Fortunately, we've seen that from him plenty this season, and it's given fans a lot of optimism about going on the road, in a hostile environment, and getting the win to head to the Super Bowl for the first time since winning Super Bowl LIII.
If that's not an indication of just how good Maye has been and will be, it's hard to say what would be.
It's an exciting time for Patriots fans and it could still get even better if they sneak out a win next week, with Maye breaking even more records in the process.