The New England Patriots played one of the NFL's best defenses, the Cleveland Browns, and lit it up for a 32-13 win. Forget about beating just the low-hanging fruit. The Browns' D is a legit monster, and the Patriots put it in its place, drubbing the Browns' defense in the process.
Now, 12-year NFL veteran Patriots' Morgan Moses is joining the chorus in praising his 23-year-old quarterback, Drake Maye.
Right tackle Moses is the grizzled veteran on the Patriots' O-line. He was signed as a free agent, along with fellow veteran center Garrett Bradbury, to help solidify the NFL's worst 2024 O-line. Along with two rookie starters, they comprise 80 percent of Vrabel's 2025 starting offensive line. Only Mike Onwenu remains as a starter from 2024.
Moses is the sage veteran presence who's mentored his left-side bookend, Will Campbell, and helped turn a Patriots' franchise that was the laughingstock of the NFL for two years into a bona fide NFL playoff contender—and more. With Maye now leading the way back to the playoffs as expected, it's no shock to hear Moses chiming in on the young quarterback's impact on the turnaround.
Morgan Moses likes what he sees in Drake Maye
Mark Daniels of MassLive spoke to Moses after the Patriots' latest win over the Browns, and the right tackle expounded on his young quarterback, who's taking the top off the NFL after only 20 starts in his fledgling career.
“'We’ve known what type of baller he is. We’ve seen him in college. You saw him maneuver last year. And you look forward to that. We’ve got a hell of a quarterback behind us. We’ve got a hell of a group of offense, defense, and special teams. When you play complementary football, that’s what it looks like.'”
The veteran pulled no punches in dishing out the accolades to a young quarterback who's barely completed the equivalent of a full season of starts. Adding even more to his impressive progress, Maye received no first-time snaps at all in the 2024 preseason, nor until about the fourth game of 2024, his rookie season. Regardless, he still completed 66 percent of his passes with little complementary talent either on his O-line or the wide receiving corps.
When the Patriots hired Mike Vrabel on January 12, 2025, to run the entire football operation, everything changed. Free agent additions like Moses, Bradbury, and wide receiver Stefon Diggs, along with brilliant draft picks like left tackle Campbell and left guard Jared WIlson, have helped Maye transform a last-place loser into the current AFC East Division leader.
Drake Maye is the fulcrum around which the Patriots' entire success revolves
Mike Vrabel is one of the NFL's most astute coaches and executives. Not only is he a top-five NFL Head Coach, but he's learned through experience how to evaluate NFL-level talent and build a roster. One of the most important factors in Vrabel's taking the Patriots' job (he certainly had other options) was that he knew he had Drake Maye around whom to build his team.
It was clear to Vrabel that he had a dual-threat, pass-and-run quarterback in Maye to run a 2020s-style NFL offense. Maye's 2024 season had been grossly underrated by even the most astute observers of all things Patriots. Then, when he threw four interceptions in his first 2025 OTA practice, the sky looked foolishly upon, as certainly falling.
Vrabel quickly dispelled those silly suggestions. Maye then proceeded to build upon his very solid, but disappointing, record-wise 2024 campaign with the benefit of a far better (if still not superlative) supporting cast. The young quarterback just needed more time to pass and better receivers to reel them in. He got both, and predictably, he made it all work.
Moses also had this to say in Daniels' article about Maye's crushing the vaunted Cleveland defense, “'We know what we have at quarterback, and he’s done an amazing job through these last weeks,' Moses said. 'Him as a football player - running the ball, maneuvering through the pocket, we heard all week about this being the No. 1 defense, and we took that challenge and ran with it.'" Indeed, they did. As this team further coalesces, the sky isn't falling - it's the limit on just what this team can achieve.