With the season second-year quarterback Drake Maye is having while wearing the Flying Elvis on his helmet, it’s extremely difficult not to immediately look at what he’s doing through the lens of Tom Brady.
I don’t need to explain why. You all know the GOAT’s bonafides at this point.
Every quarterback who plays for the Patriots (8-2) for the rest of human history will be compared to Tom Brady in some form or fashion. Whether it’s Cam Newton or Mac Jones or Bailey Zappe or Jacoby Brissett - if they’re under center or in the shotgun in New England, the specter of Tom is always going to be lurking.
It’s especially hard to not put Maye in the same breath as Brady when he’s the leader in MVP odds at multiple sportsbooks through 10 games. If you take the flashes Maye showed during his rookie year and combine them with what he’s done over the past 10 weeks, it’s evident that the 23-year-old is in a different stratosphere from the others who have played QB here since Brady left for Tampa Bay in March of 2020.
Heading into his Week 11 matchup on Thursday Night Football against the Jets (2-7), the expectation both locally and nationally is for the North Carolina-product to continue playing at his league-leading pace. New York may be riding a two-game winning streak, but they’re still among the worst teams in football that actually made themselves worse at the deadline by trading away cornerback Sauce Gardner and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams.
Another big game for Maye, this time in primetime, will mean another newscycle of adulation, which means another round of comps to the seven-time Super Bowl champion.
Is this all fair? One of Brady’s long-time teammates thinks it might be a bit premature.
“Way too early,” three-time Super Bowl champion Devin McCourty said when asked about the comps on Thursday’s Greg Hill Show. “I mean, Drake's got to put together a lot of seasons for me to even think about uttering him and Tom Brady.
“I don't think it's too early to break down the early part of Tom Brady's career and compare, because when you work in media, that's what you do. You have to, it's fun to do. But I think overall, to mention him and mention Brady, and what Brady was able to do in New England, is just too soon. But you enter those conversations if you get to the Super Bowl. You win a Super Bowl, you enter the conversation to be spoken about with anybody. But I still think that's a time away before we can enter Drake Maye into there.”
“10 weeks in, where would you rank Drake among other quarterbacks?” WEEI’s Courtney Cox asked McCourty in a follow-up.
“Right now, he's playing like a top five quarterback,” said the future Patriots Hall of Fame defensive back. “That's why he's a favorite in the MVP race. I think when you're a quarterback in this league, and your team's winning and you're playing at a high level, that makes you the guy to talk about.
“Whether it was Jayden Daniels last year as a rookie, CJ Stroud when he was a rookie, Matthew Stafford right now, even at his older age - when you're quarterbacking a top-level team that's going out there executing, you should be spoken about in a high regard. Daniel Jones, same thing with Indianapolis right now, Sam Darnold in Seattle - guys that are not big names, guys that were written off. Whatever you want to say - you go do that, you should be talked about when you talk about MVP.
“Like, Jonathan Taylor and Matthew Stafford, to me, would have a leg up. But I think it's crazy - if anybody would have said two years ago, ‘We're going to get a quarterback in Drake Maye, and in his second year, he's going to be top five in MVP talks.’ Like, I would have said, ‘Hey, give me that right now, that's ridiculous.’ I think that's what he's played his way into.”
So he might be a real MVP candidate, but McCourty isn’t ready to put Maye in the same echelon as Brady.
With that said, he’s doing everything in his power through 10 games to start building towards one day being in that discussion.
Will he ever surpass him? Almost certainly not.
But can he go down as the second greatest QB in Patriots history? Almost certainly yes, with apologies to Drew Bledsoe.
As of publishing, Maye and his Patriots are 12.5-point favorites over the Jets on FanDuel, sitting on the moneyline at -800. The total for this one is set at 43.5.
Tune in each and every Monday throughout the football season to Patriots Monday on WEEI. Head coach Mike Vrabel joins The Greg Hill Show at 6:30 a.m. ET, and quarterback Drake Maye joins WEEI Afternoons.