The Patriots magical 2025 season ended with Drake Maye holding back tears during his post-game press conference after a 29-13 loss to the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX last February.

New England's young quarterback had established himself as an NFL star and an MVP candidate in just his second season. He led the Patriots through the AFC to Santa Clara in a Super Bowl run nobody saw coming, but Maye's meteoric rise unfortunately had a crash landing at Levi's Stadium seven months ago.

"This hurts. No doubt. It definitely hurts. It's been a long ride. They played better than us tonight. They deserve to win that game," Maye said with his emotions written all over his face. "Speaking for the whole team and myself, just what a journey it's been for us. I love this team."

As the second-youngest quarterback to start a Super Bowl in NFL history, Maye captured that moment in the media tent outside Levi's Stadium perfectly. Although the Patriots fell short of the ultimate prize, it had been a heck of a journey from a 4-13 record in Maye's rookie season to a 14-3 mark in 2025. But the Patriots and their now third-year quarterback are focused on using the Super Bowl loss as fuel in 2026.

"You can use it as a learning experience and an experience that I have a chance to remember for the rest of my career, the rest of my life," Maye said two days after losing to the Seahawks. "It's a chance to battle back from something that didn't go your way or you wish would have gone differently and give you fuel to remember that. That's what gives you something to work for."

As the Patriots turn the page to a season that will begin with a Super Bowl rematch on banner night in Seattle on Wednesday, Maye is entering his first season since high school with the same offensive coordinator. In college, Maye had coordinators Phil Longo (2022) and Chip Lindsey (2023). Then, Alex Van Pelt was his offensive coordinator in his rookie season with the Patriots, followed by Josh McDaniels in 2025. In his second year with McDaniels and QB coach Ashton Grant, the Patriots coaches are pushing Maye even harder to master the offense — no more free passes because it's year one in a new system.

"We are just trying to push him a little bit out of his comfort zone. So, when the bullets are flying, it's not something he hasn't seen before," Grant said. "We try to push the whole room and make those guys uncomfortable and give them scenarios that maybe they haven't seen before."

The Patriots coaching staff is helping Maye graduate to a master's degree in the McDaniels system, which gives him complete control at the line of scrimmage. Teammates have noticed a louder, more confident Maye. One example was when he impressed his new No. 1 receiver, A.J. Brown, by speaking to the team during a spring meeting. Brown and Maye's lockers are now located next to each other inside the New Balance Athletics Center.

"He's a true leader. He leads the room. It says a lot that a young guy grabs everybody's attention," Brown said in episode two of Forged in Foxborough.

The hope is that Maye will have more tools to get the offense into the best play possible. After the Seahawks put the Pats protections in binds throughout the Super Bowl, part of Maye's maturation in the system is a better understanding of how to get the offense into a sound play call based on what the defense is showing. After watching a master of the McDaniels offense work for years, former Patriots quarterback Brian Hoyer weighed in on how he sees Maye improving in his second season in the system.

"Drake obviously had a phenomenal year last year, a few votes away from MVP. They go to the Super Bowl and he's really just doing the what of the offense instead of understanding the why," Hoyer told Patriots.com. "I think that's where you're going to see the growth this year. It's just the understanding of the why and how to get out of bad plays. Obviously, Tom (Brady) was so good at doing that."

Hoyer also expects Maye to have more input in the offense now that he and McDaniels, who won AP Assistant Coach of the Year in 2025, have a successful season under their belts.

"I think it's so important because now they're not starting at phase one. They're starting where they left off. They're refining, improving, and adding," said Hoyer. "Instead of him coaching Drake, it's them growing together, and it becomes a partnership more than a coach-player relationship."

As great as Maye's second season was, the under-the-hood numbers suggest a few areas he could improve. Mainly, Maye had the seventh-highest sack rate among 33 qualified quarterbacks (8.0%) and fumbled a league-high 15 times last season (including playoffs). One of Maye's superpowers is his ability to make plays off-script, which the Patriots have always welcomed. However, extending plays can invite more hits on the quarterback. Maye has spoken about wanting to get the ball out faster but avoiding sacks is much more than just a quick release.

For example, one of two coverages that Maye had a negative EPA against last season was cover zero. Out of 33 qualified quarterbacks, Maye ranked 20th in EPA per drop-back against cover zero (-0.18). In the Super Bowl, Seattle tested that early by sending a cover zero pressure at Maye to stall an encouraging opening drive for the Patriots. The Seahawks dialed up what's often called a "glitch" blitz where two defensive backs blitz off the edge while the interior rushers "pop" out of the rush into short zones after drawing the attention of the interior offensive line. The Pats only had six blockers for Seattle's seven potential rushers, so CB Devon Witherspoon was left unblocked.

"That's a unique situation because it's a challenge based on what type of pressures you're seeing or what the defense presents to you," McDaniels said of Maye handling pressure schemes. "I also think that's a unit thing, you know? When you're talking about handling those types of situations well, it's not a one-man show. Drake certainly has to do his part and we're gonna need everybody else to do their part, too."

The other statistical outlier from his MVP runner-up campaign was Maye's struggle against cover six. Cover six, or quarter-quarter-half, is a zone coverage where the defense plays quarters to one side and cover two to the other side of the field (see above). Maye ranked 32nd out of 33 qualified quarterbacks during the regular season in EPA per drop-back against cover six in 2025. One theory for the shaky results against cover six is that defenses are taking away Maye's deep ball. On 36 drop-backs vs. cover six, Maye only generated a 5.6% explosive pass rate (31st in the NFL). Maye's explosive pass rate against all other coverages was a league-best 21.4%.

"That's the en vogue thing on defense right now. The reality is when you call plays and you go on tendencies, you don't always know when cover six is coming. It's not really something you can audible to because it's a coverage; it's not a blitz. It's not a look, right," Hoyer explained. "It's more when you recognize the coverage, you're hoping you have at least one good concept either to the (cover) two side or the (cover) four side. You can work that, take the completion and move on."

Although there's always a lot on the quarterback's plate, the Patriots aren't expecting Maye to improve on his own. New England added Brown and free-agent acquisition Romeo Doubs to form a new wide receiver tandem with the hopes that the duo raises the ceiling of the passing game. The Pats also made tweaks to their offensive line, adding LG Alijah Vera-Tucker in free agency and moving 2025 third-rounder Jared Wilson to center. Plus, signing FB Reggie Gilliam for McDaniels' run-action staples from two-back formations was a sneaky-big addition. After seeing a 51.3% two-high safety rate in the postseason to take away Maye's deep ball, the Patriots could counter lighter boxes with heavy personnel to play power football.

In 2023, McDaniels brought Hoyer with him to Vegas as the Raiders backup quarterback. The Raiders had a similar duo to Brown and Doubs: Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers. Although the win-loss column wasn't what Vegas envisioned, the duo combined for 174 receptions, 1.951 yards, and 16 touchdowns in 2023. Adams was a traditional "X" receiver on the outside while Meyers played the "Z" spot. Like Brown and Doubs, Adams and Meyers both had good size and the ability to win the ball downfield on vertical routes. Adams's route tree primarily consisted of fades, hitches, slants, and digs, which is similar to Brown's vertical route tree in training camp. Hoyer then pointed to Meyers running similar routes as Doubs in Green Bay.

"I love that comparison because I've always said that Doubs can be a version of Jakobi Meyers, especially seeing the route tree (Doubs) ran in Green Bay: inside fades, option routes, cross-sail (corner) routes. Those are three routes right there that Jakobi Meyers made a living on," Hoyer said. "Then, you talk about A.J., and he's different from Davante, but he's more like that No. 1 vertical, strong receiver. Different releases and things like that, but that's a really good comparison for how they're going to use those two guys."

With the upgrades around him as he heads into year two in McDaniels's offense, the Patriots have the foundation for Maye to buck an NFL trend. Out of 38 quarterbacks to lose their first Super Bowl appearance, only four won a Super Bowl after losing in the big game (10.5%). The youngest quarterback to ever start a Super Bowl, Dan Marino, was 35 days younger than Maye when he started Super Bowl XIX, a 38-16 loss to Joe Montana and the 49ers — Marino never made it back.

There are never any guarantees but Maye in year two under the reigning Assistant Coach of the Year, with Brown, Doubs, and an improved supporting cast is a scary proposition for the rest of the NFL.

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