Drake Maye will never achieve the commercial success of the music superstar who shares his given name.
Drake crooned about “God’s Plan.” Drake Maye is merely trying not to get lost in the GOAT’s footsteps.
But there is a certainty surrounding Maye’s official arrival in Foxboro on Friday with the start of Patriots rookie training camp.
Drake’s music amassed billions of downloads and video views over the past two decades.
Like that Drake did nearly 20 years ago, this Drake, at 6-5, heralds a new sound. A new era. A new vibe. A new look.
For the first time since Y2K was a thing, the Patriots begin the season without Bill Belichick in their employ. (Veterans report next week.)
Belichick has gone the way of Alt Rock, Punk, Grunge, and Disco. Think Narcissus. Or Faces. Or The Channel. All gone. Never forgotten. Just like the Hoodie. Glorious reminders of a wondrous past.
Did it all really happen? What was in that drink?
The long-awaited down-to-the-studs-and-foundation rebuild necessary in Foxboro since the departure of Tom Brady has begun three years too late. Better now than in 2025.
The Patriots are planning to roll with Jacoby Brissett as their starting QB this season. At least as of press time.
Brissett is a stable, capable journeyman. He earned his Patriots cred back as a member of “The Wolfpack,” filling in for Tom Brady during Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension in 2016 for obeying the Ideal Gas Law. The Patriots went 1-1 in the 2 games Brissett started.
That was good enough to set the table for Brady’s best single season run. TB12 spotted the NFL 4 weeks during the regular season, and 25 points in the Super Bowl, before he went full Michael Corleone and murdered everything in his path.
Brissett’s last start came in Week 11 of the 2022 season for the Browns. Any success the Patriots enjoy this season, with Brissett or Maye at QB, will be as welcome a surprise as the playoff-bound-if-the-season-ended-today Red Sox.
Maye is more future than present in Foxboro. The Patriots went all-in on Maye with the No. 3 pick in the 2024 Draft. Yes, Maye was the third choice at QB in that draft. But his was clearly the best arm and head available.
Perhaps the “Maye 2” will make a run at the “Brady 6.”
Or not.
Maye’s story is a good one. A “Hillbilly Gronk” of sorts, Maye descends from sports royalty in North Carolina. His dad was the Top Gun at the University of North Carolina in the 1980s, setting many of the school’s passing records. But he never took an NFL snap as a member of the Tampa Bay Bucs. His mom was once Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) girls’ high school basketball player of the year. Two of his older brothers won national championships in basketball (North Carolina) and baseball (Florida) in 2017.
Drake Maye has the opportunity to eclipse them all. His hyper-competitive nature would have it no other way.
Maye was born and raised in Huntersville, North Carolina, near Charlotte. Huntersville delivered the knuckleball to the world via native and Hall of Fame pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. The Patriots have had their fill of junk-ballers in recent years with the likes of Cam Newton and Mac Jones. Maye should be able throw the ball on a straight line for at least 60 feet, 6 inches. Without hitting his linemen in the process.
Huntersville is also the home of Joe Gibbs Racing. Gibbs won 3 Super Bowls coaching the Washington (nee Boston) Redskins. A fourth Super Bowl ring for Huntersville will be enough for Robert Kraft.
At 83, Kraft is in the fight of his life to keep his football team relevant on the front and back page. Kraft’s invite to Michael Rubin’s White Party remains in good stead. But his football team has fallen back to the bad old days of the early 1990s. Thankfully, Victor Kiam and his “Patriot Missile” jokes are no longer part of the team’s masthead.
Maye has a touch of the Blue Ridge Mountains in his repertoire. His maternal grandmother once lived just south of Grandfather Mountain in Linville. Grandfather Mountain is best-known for its 228-foot-long, Mile-High Swinging Bridge, which offers stunning views of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee.
The steel-and-cable crossing handles up to 40 people at a time. The bridge is sturdy, but sways with the slightest side-to-side movement or wind. The views are spectacular. But it shuts down during extreme weather. A perfect metaphor for the upcoming Patriots season.
Oddsmakers have the Patriots ending up somewhere near the bottom of the mile-deep gap at Grandfather Mountain. The team collectively has the lowest betting odds of any NFL franchise.
The Patriots are 180-1 to win the Super Bowl, 100-1 to win the AFC, and 25-1 to win the AFC East. New England is 9-1 to make the playoffs. But you have to bet $18 to win $1 if you think they’ll miss the postseason – again. Those numbers are from Boston-based DraftKings. The Patriots have the lowest over/under win total in the NFL at 4.5. The price varies between sportsbooks in terms of which side of that number the team will finish.
Finally, the Patriots are betting underdogs in all 17 of their games this season.
All 17. New England is a 4.5-point underdog at home against the Jets on Oct. 27. And a 2.5-point underdog at home against the Colts on Dec. 1. Eleven of the 15 games currently with a time scheduled are set to kickoff at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
How the mighty have crumbled.
Maye’s first snap with the Patriots marks the abyss of whatever period of malaise currently engulfs this franchise.
When you’re at the bottom of a mile-deep gap in the AFC, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Bill Speros (@BillSperos and @RealOBF) can be reached at [email protected].
