It's the summer lull in the NFL, and the New England Patriots and their star quarterback, Drake Maye, are on a break like all other NFL teams. That leaves room for some very odd rankings of both teams and players.
One recently by Sayre Bedinger of NFL Spinzone certainly should catch the attention of Patriot Nation. He ranks Patriots' outstanding quarterback Drake Maye only seventh in the AFC!
How the NFL's runner-up MVP could be ranked that low just in the AFC is beyond any reasoning at all. He'd probably be ranked in the middle of the entire NFL's quarterbacks if that were at play.
Maye is among the top five quarterbacks in the NFL and arguably the league's best passer based on facts. i.e., statistics and not faulty opinions.
Drake Maye is head and shoulders above most NFL quarterbacks
Few NFL teams wouldn't swap their quarterback for the Patriots' precocious 23-year-old MVP-in-waiting. Maye only lost the NFL's most prestigious MVP award by one foolish vote. It should rightly have been his.
Maye lost the TD battle to MVP Matthew Stafford by a 46 to 31 count, a fair point. But other than that, some of his key stats were far better. His completion percentage of 72 percent was a full seven points higher than Stafford's 65%, and that with a sieve-like offensive line and inferior receivers.
Maye was also sacked a whopping 47 times in the regular season to Stafford's 23. That should be enough said about that monstrous disparity.
Now Bedinger has oddly ranked Maye only seventh in his AFC quarterback power ranking.
"We saw a couple of different versions of Maye last season -- One player in the regular season, and a completely different player in the playoffs. Maye had to go up against an absolute gauntlet of defenses in the postseason, but he didn't look the part of a 2nd-team All-Pro or MVP candidate in those games. Especially not in the Super Bowl.
Maye is building something special with his career overall, and is one of the most talented all-around passers in the NFL. We'll see how he responds this season after a tough stretch in the playoffs."
Bedinger's reasoning is flawed. While Maye, of course, faced far better opposition in the post-season than he did in the regular season. It is to be expected that things would tighten up, especially for a second-year quarterback in his first playoff games.
Also, Maye was injured for the Super Bowl and at least part of the Denver game, and possibly other postseason games. Castigating a player who played hurt is misguided. He should be lauded, not downgraded.
He now has a top-flight NFL receiving corps on hand with star A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs as his new top two receivers, and is projected to have an even better third season than what we saw last year, which was already impressive.
Yet the key question is: has the team improved the offensive line enough to dramatically reduce his sacks and keep clean pockets? The answer will decide how well Maye performs in 2026.
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