FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Drake Maye’s first memory of the deep ball wasn’t as a quarterback. It was as a receiver. He’s the youngest of four brothers and anyone who has older siblings knows how the hierarchy works.
“They wouldn’t let me play quarterback,” he said.
Their mistake.
Finally, when they gave him the ball, Drake connected on his first-ever long ball with his brother Luke, the fastest sibling, at their house in Huntersville, North Carolina. And so it began. By high school, Maye was the QB1 at Myers Park in Charlotte.
His downfield throws would take the air out of the stadium.
“I just remember throwing deep balls and the crowd would gasp,” Maye said. “Just hearing that gasp was pretty cool. … Hearing the crowd get into it, I think you always get excited.”
There might not be another quarterback in the NFL making more people gasp this year than Maye. Midway through his second year with the Patriots, Maye has 32 pass plays of 20-plus yards, tied for third-most in the NFL. He has 19 completions of 20-plus air yards, tied for second-most in the NFL.
His completion percentage over expected (CPOE) is an absurd 9.6, first in the NFL among starting quarterbacks. That shouldn’t be happening with the number of deep throws he’s attempting. Despite the high attempt rate, Maye leads the NFL with a 74.1 completion percentage.
That’s right: One of the NFL’s most aggressive passers is also the league’s most efficient.
And he’s converting those opportunities in ways that are changing the game in New England’s favor. He leads the league in total expected points added: 72.4. That’s more than MVP QBs Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, and the hottest QBs like Jordan Love and Daniel Jones.
It’s why Maye is a clear-cut candidate for the 2025 NFL MVP award.
One swing of Maye’s arm and the Patriots can eat up half the field. That electricity, at just 23 years old, makes him the envy of the league.
Patriots star Drake Maye has been going deep ever since his older brothers let him start playing quarterback. (Photo by Billie Weiss/Getty Images)
He is entirely unafraid of pushing the ball downfield, even if he’s targeting receivers without household names: Kayshon Boutte, Mack Hollins and DeMario Douglas. The one receiver who is a household name, Stefon Diggs, hasn’t been the beneficiary of the long ball. Maye made sure I knew that. When I asked Diggs in the locker room for his thoughts on Maye’s downfield throwing, the QB interrupted as he walked by.
“He wouldn’t know. He hasn’t caught one yet,” Maye said with a smirk.
“Exactly, I’ll let you know when I catch one,” Diggs said as he headed out to practice.
Sports journalists often talk about moxie. But it’s hard to pinpoint what it is — what it looks like. Well, it looks like that interaction above.
It’s only a matter of time before Diggs, a four-time Pro Bowler, does catch one of Maye’s bombs. The biggest bomb beneficiary so far has been third-year pro Boutte, who leads the team in receiving touchdowns (5). He seems to be Maye’s favorite downfield target.
“You just got to know how to get open and how to catch the balls,” Boutte told me when asked for the fine details of how they convert deep passes.
Is it really that simple? Because Maye has made it look that easy.
*Narrator’s voice* It’s not.
Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said Boutte, in particular, has unique “long speed.” He is “strong.” He’s competitive in contested-catch situations and can “track the ball very well.” That’s what makes Boutte, a sixth-round pick in 2023, so dangerous in 2025.
For the quarterback, the deep ball often starts with a play call that’s designed to go downfield. Now, Maye has found downfield options by going off-script, but more often, it’s by design. He admits there’s a different energy in the huddle when he delivers a call where the deep ball is a high likelihood.
“The offensive line gets excited,” Maye said. “I think they know in the huddle, based on the call, some of the same words are showing up for deep shots.”
Center Garrett Bradbury confirmed as much. He knows when he’ll have to hold the rusher just a split second longer to help Maye find his receiver downfield. And while that means more work for the team’s pass protectors, it’s worth it.
“He’s playing lights out. His head’s not getting too big. He’s the same guy as when I first met him,” Bradbury told me.
Next comes the pre-snap recognition from Maye, who is looking for one-on-one coverage on the perimeter receiver who’s headed downfield. There was a perfect example of that during the team’s Week 8 win over the Cleveland Browns. Because McDaniels was mic’d up for the game, we saw him recognize the opportunity in real-time alongside the quarterback.
The Patriots wanted a one-on-one matchup for Boutte. They wanted the Cleveland cornerback to step off the line and give Boutte a cushion. And they wanted the corner to move to the middle of the field before the snap to give Boutte leverage and built-in separation down the sideline.
Check. Check. Check.
But even after seeing everything fall perfectly into place, not every quarterback will let the football fly.
“So many times you see on film people have stuff schemed up, and they don’t always take advantage of it,” backup quarterback Joshua Dobbs told me. “We’d had [the Boutte touchdown] drawn up for a couple weeks, but we finally got the right look, and — bang — we hit it.”
Maye is trusting his pre-snap reads and his coaching. He’s trusting his protection — even during a game when Browns edge Myles Garrett had a franchise-record-tying five sacks. Maye is trusting his receivers to come down with the football. That’s what Boutte did for a 39-yard touchdown.
“I think [the long ball] starts with trust, just being able to put it in a position where those guys can make a play,” coach Mike Vrabel said. “One: trust. Then it’s location.”
Maye’s pinpoint accuracy in every type of throw has been remarkable.
“He’s giving us a chance,” Hollins said.
A dang good one.
The 2025 Patriots have levels of trust in their quarterback that the organization has not seen since you know who: Tom Brady. The secret ingredient to New England’s offensive success isn’t just an elite arm, which Maye has. It isn’t just Maye’s speedy processing. Or his outstanding athleticism. The composite of those things (and more) has created trust in the offense. That’s what has New England operating aggressively — and that’s what has put defenses on their heels (before trying and failing to chase down Boutte).
“I keep on telling them, ‘I’m going to give you a chance to go make a play,'” Maye said of his pass-catchers. “They keep on making plays and building trust every week. So that trust isn’t going to change.”
It could, of course. Players get hot. Players go cold, particularly when teams wise up to the commitment to the deep ball. Maye could see more shell coverage — the defensive treatment Allen and Mahomes got when their downfield passing got out of control. The way to beat shell coverage is to stay patient and settle for checkdowns. That would precipitate a new point of growth for Maye.
Hollins has faith in Maye, no matter the situation.
“This is a very difficult offense to learn at any position, let alone the quarterback, who has to know it all,” Hollins told me. “But as he continues to learn, continues to learn, continues to learn, he’s getting better and more confident.”
If all that tracks, Maye will keep seeing and taking that deep shot. And if so, the Patriots, one of the biggest surprises of the 2025 season, could very well go deep in the playoffs.
Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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