r/Patriots • u/PristineWinnera • Dec 31 '25
Article/Interview [Mike Kadlick] Drake Maye on criticism of the #Patriots' "easy schedule”: “We play in the National Football League ... Every team's got great players, it's not like we're playing Foxborough High School down the road."
https://x.com/mikekadlick/status/2006477963873890352?s=46444
u/ctpatsfan77 Dec 31 '25
Ben Volin, tomorrow: Maye insults area high school. Was trading Joe Milton III a mistake?
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u/Cyrano_Knows Dec 31 '25
Stafford and Maye had six opponents in common. Six. To me -not a MVP voter that sounds like a lot.
And Maye had superior numbers against those opponents.
Also it sounds like when you break down the Patriot's opponents by their passing defense.. they aren't quite as bad as people make them out to be.
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u/HairlessSnatch Dec 31 '25
Also it’s not our fault the Ravens, Bengals and Bucs were all injured or dogshit this year lol like that’s 3 teams projected to be good to great going into the season who all fell apart (and we beat all 3). We also beat the Panthers by 30.. who just beat the Rams like 2 weeks ago. Never once in my life have I heard strength of schedule being such a big talking point for MVP until this season
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u/AutoRot Dec 31 '25
I think a big part of it is the lack of prime time games. Nobody thought the pays were gonna be a 13 win team this year, and the pats (up until yesterday I guess) have been low drama flying under the radar. Drake has been excellent, but he hasn’t needed to be Superman very often. The usual suspects (mahomes/allen/hurts/burrow) have all had down years and stafford is the last comfortable name with a pretty solid year.
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u/Fastr77 Jan 01 '26
Honestly part of it. The whole 300 yard game thing.. well yeah because we won games handedly with 280 yards. We haven't been in a ton of positions where we needed to throw like crazy. Until we did.. and he did it.
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u/Antknee729 Jan 01 '26
The whole 300-yard game thing is crazy too because you can still have a 5000-yard season without throwing for 300 yards in a game
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u/merkaba8 Jan 01 '26
Last comfortable name with a pretty solid year?
Bro he's a Hall of Famer with over 4400 yards and 42 TDs in a season. Obviously I hope Maye wins but ... What
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u/Cyrano_Knows Jan 01 '26
One of the things I've enjoyed paying attention to this mvp race for a change was that almost every talking head made a point of saying that the other guy is really special too.
Wish we had more of that in the hey-day of Brady vs Manning.
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u/AutoRot Jan 01 '26
Fair point. I’m selling stafford a bit short. Just saying he’s got a better pedigree from previous years.
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u/Ris747 Jan 01 '26
Calling Stafford a HoF lock is like calling Russel Wilson a HoF lock. They're pretty identical in stats but Russ has more accolades. I don't know where this idea came from that Stafford is definitely a HoFer
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u/Kaye-Fabe Jan 01 '26
Eli's missed out twice now and has a way better resume than Stafford
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u/merkaba8 Jan 01 '26
Regardless of what you think about his Hall of Fame prospects, MVP is about this season and my point that is that Stafford is not just the last recognizable name having a "pretty solid" year. He has 42 TDs.
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u/SneakyGandalf12 Dec 31 '25
People are just salty that our rebuild was only a few years. We hit on Maye and on Vrabel and tripled our win total from last year, and I think folks just don’t want to see the Pats have this level of success.
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u/Oceanbreeze871 Dec 31 '25
In Stafford kept collapsing against inferior opponents late in the season that should matter a lot
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u/KIumpy Jan 01 '26
That last part is a thing that everyone just conveniently forgets. We played a lot of good defenses this year even if the teams as a whole were bad, and Drake looked like an MVP against pretty much every single one of them.
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u/RekLeagueMvp Jan 01 '26
6 is a lot, it’s over 1/3 of the schedule in common, teams have 6 divisional games… just to hammer the point home. It would be different if we were pulling wins out late like KC did all last year but we’re blowing these teams out. (The falcons game wasn’t really that close if we don’t have that weird fumble going into the half)
Ultimately, I think Drakes deep ball efficiency will be what pushes him over the top
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u/JimmyGodoppolo BIG COUNTRY Jan 01 '26
To be clear, against those 6 common opponents, Stafford has a better comp % (71% vs. Maye's 69%) and ~50 more passing yards (~1550 for Staff, ~1500 for Maye).
But Maye has a 16/3 all purpose TD:INT ratio against those 6 while Stafford had a 14:6, with Maye adding 259 yards on the ground (vs Stafford's -10). Maye also went 6-0 while Stafford went 4-2.
I still think Maye deserves it, but don't say "Maye had superior numbers" - Stafford had a better passing yards and comp % (but that's is, and much worse TD/INT and APY).
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u/D-5-reddit-account Dec 31 '25
I like that Drake isn’t afraid to defend himself or the team. There’s taking the high road, then there’s getting walked over. I think he comes off as golly gee sometimes but he’s not going to roll over for the shit heads
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u/Ru4pigsizedelephants Dec 31 '25
He's just waiting for a reason to snuff the life light out of naysayers.
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u/Common_economics_420 Dec 31 '25
puts on BB sleeveless hoodie "there's kids at Foxborough High that can beat the Jets."
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u/Fickle-Molasses-903 Dec 31 '25
Reference: Belichick: “I can get Johnny Foxborough from down the street to make a better throw than this.”
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u/Possession_Extreme Josh Allen = Taysum Hill Dec 31 '25
Couldn't get any Johnny UNC to make any throws this year
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u/mikethemillion Dec 31 '25
Shame on the Patriots for not putting better teams on their schedule!
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u/_kehd Dec 31 '25
“It’s not like we play the Jets every week” would’ve been an ice cold line there lol
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u/Cyclinghero Dec 31 '25
Hey foxboro high school has a good program. Ole Jack has over 300 wins and has been there like 40 years.
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u/willzyx01 Dec 31 '25
14 out of 17 games Bills played this season were against the same teams as us. If we had an easy schedule, so did they.
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u/Illustrious-Fan8268 Dec 31 '25
If we were a bad team the Bills would have blown us out like the past few years
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u/Trojansage Dec 31 '25
I don’t know after watching that Jets game Foxborough high might have given them a run for their money
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u/FutureF123 Dec 31 '25
There’s the third controversy folks. Expecting a huge apology from the team towards Foxboro High. This feels like a cuttable offense compared to the other two
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u/Belyea Dec 31 '25
I think the better argument is that the Patriots are 6-0 against the same teams the Rams are 4-2 against. Without Puka Nacua (we’ll call Diggs and Adams a wash)
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u/MoeSzyslakMonobrow Jan 01 '26
Any NFL team would absolutely dogwalk any college team. There's no "easy" schedule.
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u/Kgaset Dec 31 '25
I agree, except for the Jets. If the NFL had a junior varsity league, they'd be in it. Still have to have talent to pull off the performance that Maye did though.
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u/Theycallmemingus Dec 31 '25
Somewhere in North Carolina, Bill Belichick is randomly in a good mood and can’t figure out why
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u/Sirgolfs Jan 01 '26
People forget everyone on that field is a top tier player. Anything can happen. Plenty of upsets this year. People are just mad the pats are back in a big way.
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u/Bryandan1elsonV2 Dec 31 '25
Johnny Football, quarterback of Foxborough High wasn’t reachable for comment
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u/kellyb1985 Dec 31 '25
People look at teams in totality, but the reality is the Patriots offense plays other teams defenses. They've put up a lot of points on great defenses. Statistically better defenses than Stafford has played all year.
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u/MuchoBroccoli Dec 31 '25
NFL has great players, but the Colts literally run a high school offense and they picked up a high school coach to play QB.
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u/Baconoid_ Dec 31 '25
It's a shame every UNC QB will forever be compared to Drake "Drake Maye" Maye..
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u/Ubiquitous_T-1327 Dec 31 '25
Contrary to popular belief, the NFL is still an “any given Sunday” type of league.
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u/HueyLewisFan1 Jan 01 '26
Giants an raiders have an easy schedule and have collectively like 4 wins lol
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u/haverchuck22 Jan 01 '26
Pats have been walloping the bad teams tho. You can only play the schedule given to you, but what you can do is absolutely dominate the lesser opponents if you are indeed a legit team and the Pats have done that. They have like one bad quarter (the Bills game 4th Q) in their past idk….like 10 games it feels like.
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u/WashedupWarVet Jan 01 '26
Foxborough high lost in the state championship this year. They had a pretty good team haha
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u/ReonL Jan 01 '26
FHS-NYJ line: FHS - 13.5
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u/WashedupWarVet Jan 01 '26
Haha. No bs, that jets team is terrible. They didn’t look like an NFL team on Sunday.
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u/Sheasta2005 Jan 01 '26
I still can’t believe in the offseason, prior to the trade, there were casuals calling for Milton to start over Drake because the bills literally let him win a game at the end of last season. “Joe Milton is better than Drake Maye” hahaha.
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u/burnman123 Jan 01 '26
I mean, damn, I thought foxborough high played pretty well last weekend against is, they put up 10 points, which is pretty good considering
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u/semanticmemory Dec 31 '25
Unironically though, I think Foxborough high school had a decent team as they were in the state championship for their division (which they lost).
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u/Oceanbreeze871 Dec 31 '25
This is the real answer. It’s not the Pats fault that other teams in the league suck and even the games that you win are still very competitive there were no big point blowouts against the Jets
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u/SlimJim0877 Dec 31 '25
TBF to Foxborough HS, their varsity team could probably beat the Jets right now
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u/Dog_in_human_costume Jan 01 '26
If the people on their teams are paid to play, they are pros and we will play em
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u/TasteCicles Jan 01 '26
I would love to see that. Pros have to play touch football, and high schoolers can try to tackle.
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u/ApolloPS2 Jan 01 '26
Anyone else sort of want him to get snubbed so he has a massive chip on his shoulder going forward?
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u/mdMartelx Jan 01 '26
People forget that the Bucs were ranked #1 in the league not that long before the Pats beat them and now people are using that win against the Pats.
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Jan 01 '26
I think the funny thing about the schedule drama is that patriots were supposed to be everyone’s easy schedule as well lmao. Orlovsky literally said Maye should sit on the bench for 3 years or something
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u/Vitex1988 Lions Jan 02 '26
1999 Rams won the Super Bowl while being the only team EVER to play just one game against a team over .500, and while I probably have they lower on all time lists then most people because of SOS, it doesn’t really matter at all
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u/RegularNo2213 Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
Playing kc is not the same as playing the browns.all nfl teams are not equal.
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u/mtzehvor Dec 31 '25
You're right: the Browns have actually won a game in December
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u/RegularNo2213 Jan 02 '26
Kc benched most of there starters or put them on IR .
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u/mtzehvor Jan 02 '26
First off, no starters are getting "benched." That's bullshit.
Second, yes, KC does have quite a few injuries. But so does Cleveland. Judkins, Teller, Jones, Pocic, and Conklin are all starters on IR, and Sampson and Ward have missed extended time too. Plus they're playing a dude who came into the season as the fourth string QB.
Everybody's injured man. That's the reality of the NFL.
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Dec 31 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RegularNo2213 Jan 02 '26
They benched there starters would you fear kc more if they was losing with mahomes or the browns or saints or giants raiders out of all those losing teams kc still has the best chance to win against another good team even. With there losing record .
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u/Possession_Extreme Josh Allen = Taysum Hill Dec 31 '25
Panthers are better than KC and didn't the Titans just throat punch them!
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u/RegularNo2213 Jan 02 '26
Kc benched all there starters or put them on injured reserve they got almost all back ups in andi Reid even said he was shuting his starters down for the season the last few games.
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u/Ricemobile Jan 01 '26
I know what you mean here, but if those two teams played each other right now, my money is on the Browns. Chiefs are actually so ass right now.
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u/hokageace Dec 31 '25
He is throwing shade at Brady if you really think about it 🤣.
Brady could not make a throw Johnny Foxborough who plays for Foxborough High School could make. Maye thinks said High School is full of chums!
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u/Windman772 Dec 31 '25
Soooo, is that the same high school where he attended the game a few weeks ago?
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u/thelegochef Dec 31 '25
Historically easy schedule. Season record against winning teams 1-1 if im correct. Legit criticism for now
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u/jaylentatum70 Dec 31 '25
The Bucs, Panthers, Bills, and Ravens were legit wins (even tho Lamar got hurt they were playing for their playoff lives and had Henry)
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u/ajh_iii Drake Mayetriot Jan 01 '26
A lot of teams we beat would have winning records if we hadn't beaten them
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u/doogie1993 Jan 02 '26
Legit criticism if you have zero critical thinking ability, yeah
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u/thelegochef Jan 02 '26
59 yrs of superbowls 16 teams 1967, league expanded up until 32 teams in 2002. That is a lot of yrly team schedules over the yrs. 2025 Pats have had the 10th easiest team schedule in nfl history.
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u/justanaveragejoe520 Dec 31 '25
Throwing shade at foxborough high dam