When the Patriots open the season Wednesday night in Seattle, the biggest truth in the matchup is the one that still isn’t getting enough attention: Drake Maye is already playing like a star, even if the national conversation hasn’t caught up.
In 2025, his second NFL season, Maye led the league in completion percentage at 72.0 and passer rating at 113.5. He also finished first in passer rating on deep throws, posting a 131.0 mark on passes over 20 yards. That’s elite efficiency and big-play danger wrapped into one, and he did it in his first full season as a starter.
What makes it more impressive is the setting. Maye did it with a receiving group that was closer to the bottom of the league than the top, and he carried more of the load than almost any quarterback near him in those categories.
He even came close to beating out Matthew Stafford for NFL MVP. There’s a real argument that he’s the best quarterback in the league right now, though that hasn’t fully registered nationally, especially after he played through a shoulder injury against Seattle’s defense in the Super Bowl.
This opener isn’t a revenge game in the grand sense. The stakes aren’t the same. But it does give Maye another stage to show what he’s become: a 24-year-old quarterback who looks like a force, and the delayed successor to Tom Brady.
There’s also a lot to watch around him.
A.J. Brown feels like the kind of receiver who can unlock a quarterback’s entire passing game, and the fit with Maye makes immediate sense.
Brown averaged 85 catches, 1,259 yards and eight touchdowns per season over four years with the Eagles, and those numbers came while playing with Jalen Hurts, whose game doesn’t include precision downfield passing. Maye’s strengths line up neatly with Brown’s, which makes this pairing feel tailor-made for the moment.
Christian Gonzalez is another major storyline after the Patriots locked him up Monday night with a four-year, $135 million extension that includes $102 million in guarantees. That deal makes him the highest-paid player at his position in the league, and it was exactly the move the Patriots needed to make.
Gonzalez is their best defensive player and probably the second-most important player on the roster. He was excellent in the Super Bowl, and the secondary would take a hard turn if he weren’t out there.
Then there’s Jadarian Price, who enters the game with a major chance to step into the opening left by Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker’s move to the Chiefs. Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald has said he wants to use a committee at running back, but Price, the final pick of the first round out of Notre Dame, should get the biggest opportunity.
The annoyance of the week? The NFL kicking off the season on a Wednesday. The game is finally here, but the league’s supposed concern for player health doesn’t exactly scream when the first matchup lands in the middle of the week.
And there’s a little Patriots-Seahawks history to revisit, too. Drew Bledsoe, the proud son of Walla Walla, Wash., faced his home-state Seahawks only once in nine years with New England, losing 17-14 in his third career game and start during Week 3 of his rookie season in 1993. The No. 1 pick lost a duel with No. 2 pick Rick Mirer at Foxboro Stadium after the Patriots fell behind 17-0, then made things interesting with 14 fourth-quarter points, including a 25-yard touchdown to Ben Coates.
That memory comes with a bigger point about Bledsoe: when he was on, he could look unstoppable. A recent clip of him at Washington State, firing a 44-yard touchdown through the snow in the 1992 Apple Cup, brought that back into focus.
As for the game itself, the call is simple enough. Maye hits Brown for one spectacular touchdown, and the Patriots’ offense looks a lot better than it did the last time New England and Seattle met.
But the defense still looks like a work in progress. The Patriots lose a regular-season road game for the first time since a Week 16 loss to the Bills in December 2024.
Seahawks 30, Patriots 27.
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