The Patriots are turning the page to the postseason after finishing the regular season with an outstanding 14-3 record, and the team's complete attention is on making a deep playoff run.

Although winning a Super Bowl is the priority, the end of the regular season does close the book on regular-season accolades such as MVP, Coach of the Year, Offensive Rookie of the Year, and Comeback Player of the Year – four categories where the Patriots have strong candidates. Chief among them is the NFL's Most Valuable Player award, which is a two-player race between Patriots QB Drake Maye and Rams QB Matthew Stafford. With the voting based on regular-season performance, now is a good time to make Maye's case to be the league MVP.

Before we begin making the case for Maye, let's be clear about something: this is not a takedown piece on Matthew Stafford. Stafford is a Hall of Fame-caliber quarterback who had a terrific season for the Rams. If he wins MVP, he's a deserving candidate, so don't misconstrue my pro-Maye agenda for being disrespectful toward Stafford – he's great. That said, Maye should be voted the NFL's Most Valuable Player, and here's why.

To lay out Maye's candidacy, let's start at the beginning. The expectations for the Patriots were to take a step forward in their first year under head coach Mike Vrabel. Most pundits predicted that New England would win 8-9 games, while preseason rankings had Maye with one of the league's worst supporting casts. According to ESPN, the Patriots ranked 30th in skill group and 20th in offensive line before the season. As for Stafford and the Rams, Los Angeles had the fifth-best skill group and the seventh-best O-Line, per ESPN's rankings.

The preseason rankings are important because they speak to how much each quarterback is elevating their supporting casts, but there's a reason they play the games. It seems as though analysts undersold the Patriots offense's roster talent, as the Pats pass-catchers finished fourth in Pro Football Focus's receiving grade and New England's offensive line is 14th in pass-blocking win rate. However, the Rams are No. 1 in receiving grade and No. 5 in pass-blocking win rate, while Stafford benefited from the fourth-ranked rush EPA. New England is only 26th in rush EPA, excluding quarterback runs.

Although the group was better than expected, Maye helped elevate a Patriots supporting cast that most thought was middling to the fifth-best scoring offense in the NFL. Along with being top-five in scoring, New England also has the most explosive passing offense in the league, with Maye's playmaking ability and deep-ball accuracy helping produce a league-best 20.4% explosive pass play rate. Again, Maye's pass-catchers and pass protectors deserve some credit, too, but the quarterback drives the ship.

Maye is having one of the best deep-passing seasons we have seen since we began tracking passes by air yards. According to NextGen Stats, Maye has completed an insane 52.1% of his deep attempts (25-of-48) and is adding +1.31 expected points per drop-back on throws over 20 air yards, the second-highest EPA output of the NextGen era (since 2016). Despite ranking third in air yards per pass attempt (9.2), Maye is leading the league in completion rate (72.0%), speaking to how accurate he has been throwing downfield.

On top of elite downfield accuracy, Maye has also performed well while under pressure this season. Maye has the highest passer rating (103.1) of any quarterback while under pressure, 7.5 points higher than the next closest quarterback, and 23.2 points higher than Stafford's rating. Maye also leads all quarterbacks in total EPA generated on traditional drop-backs without the benefit of play-action, which is an efficiency cheat code.

Getting back to comparing the top two candidates, Maye is the NFL's leader in completion rate, total EPA, EPA per drop-back, total QBR, passing yards per attempt, passer rating, and completion percentage over expectations. Overall, Maye bested the Rams quarterback in eight out of the 11 main passing metrics. The Pats QB has added +26.9 expected points on scrambles, seventh-most in the NFL, an element that Stafford doesn't bring to the table.

Besides traditional stats like passing yards and passing touchdowns that favor Stafford, the other argument used against Maye is his strength of schedule. Obviously, players don't determine who they face each week; the NFL's schedule formula is predetermined, with only three games based on the standings from the prior season. Still, Maye had the easiest strength of schedule in the league, while Stafford's SOS was the third-hardest slate of defenses for a quarterback based on DVOA.

Having said that, the Patriots and Rams played six games against common opponents. Now, circumstances change week to week depending on injuries and how teams are playing at that point in the season. Still, a six-game sample is over a third of the season, so it's a good barometer of how they did against similar competition. Based on the numbers, Maye fared better than Stafford in common games, and was a perfect 6-0 against the Ravens, Panthers, Buccaneers, Falcons, Saints, and Titans.

To the soft-schedule detractors, Maye also faced five defenses that rank in the top 15 in pass EPA: Bills (twice), Browns, Saints, Falcons, and Steelers. Along with a 4-2 record, Maye still fared well vs. those defenses, averaging 282.7 total yards per game with 12 touchdowns to four interceptions and a 107.6 passer rating, while adding +0.12 EPA per drop-back. Stafford played eight games against top-15 pass EPA defenses, with Maye besting him in completion rate, total yards per game, and passer rating.

Although both quarterbacks have been outstanding, Maye is doing things in his second season that nobody saw coming. He has seamlessly assimilated into OC Josh McDaniels's system, with McDaniels asking his quarterbacks to run the show at the line of scrimmage, setting protections and run schemes. Quarterbacks in McDaniels' system are also often reading coverage rather than going through pure progressions. New England does have some pure progression reads where the quarterback finds the open man by going 1, 2, 3, etc. With coverage reads, Maye is reading man, zone, or safety shell indicators (one-high vs. two-high) to determine where to go with the football, which can be more challenging for some quarterbacks.

When it comes down to it, Maye had the better statistical season, performed better in common games, and elevated a supporting cast that most feel is worse than Stafford's, all while having one of the best downfield passing seasons in recent memory. There are certainly pro-Stafford arguments, but it's clear that Maye checks more boxes than any other MVP candidate.