New England Patriots
“Shoot, we battle the elements and came out with the win. That’s what mattered.”
Drake Maye put himself in the record books on Sunday afternoon in the Meadowlands.
The primary conduit for New England’s 42-10 blowout win over the Jets, Maye torched New York’s porous defense on every drive where he had the ball in his hands.
By the time Mike Vrabel and the Patriots pulled Maye from the game midway through the third quarter, the 23-year-old QB had completed 19-of-21 passes for 256 yards and a whopping five touchdowns — four of which were delivered in the first half.
Sunday marked the first time in NFL history that a QB had recorded 255 or more passing yards, five or more touchdowns, and posted a completion percentage of 90 percent or better in a single game.
Maye became just the third Patriots QB — alongside Tom Brady and Drew Bledsoe — to record over 4,000 passing yards in a single season, and is the first Patriots player since Brady in 2014 to post four or more passing TDs in a half of football.
On top of all that, Maye confirmed during his weekly interview on WEEI that he was playing against the Jets while under the weather.
“Just a little bit of runny nose, little bit of cough,” Maye said on WEEI Afternoons. “But shoot, we battle the elements and came out with the win. That’s what mattered.”
Maye — who continues to cement his claim as a legitimate MVP candidate with just one week to go in the regular season — brushed aside a question from WEEI host Andy Hart asking if Sunday was his “flu game.”
The “flu game” is in reference to Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals where Michael Jordan — battling severe illness for close to a day — still managed to play and dropped 38 points, seven rebounds, and five assists in a critical win for the Bulls.
“Ah, naw, nothing like that,” Maye said. “Just another day, just another day.”
Maye didn’t let whatever bug that’s been hovering around this holiday season hinder him on Sunday against New York.
But he did admit that he might be getting a bit sick of several new nicknames sprouting up for him each week, with the latest on Monday being “4K Maye.”
“Jeez Louise, you’ve got to love these nicknames, huh. Now you’ve got my buddies saying that. Any time you’re with those two quarterbacks you’re in great company,” Maye said with a laugh when asked of being in the same company as Brady and Bledsoe.
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