Drake Maye’s start to the 2026 season has gone from rough to alarming, and Sunday’s game against the Jaguars added another ugly line to a growing list of them.
Through three games, Maye has already thrown six interceptions and just one touchdown, a jarring slide for a quarterback who last season posted 31 touchdowns and only eight interceptions while finishing as the MVP runner-up. Instead of building on that breakout, he has spent the opening month forcing throws, making costly mistakes and leaving the Patriots in worse positions.
The turnover problem has become impossible to ignore. It got even louder after Sunday, when CBS Sports researcher Doug Clawson noted that Maye’s performance since the start of the 2025 playoffs made him the first player to record 9+ fumbles and 10+ interceptions in a 7-game span since Jameis Winston in 2019.
That Winston season is remembered for a very specific reason: 30 touchdown passes and 30 interceptions. Maye is nowhere near that kind of balance, and right now his interception pace is tracking at nearly three times his expected touchdown total.
There were reasons to give him some grace during last postseason’s run to the Super Bowl. He was dealing with top-5 defenses on the road, and there were whispers that a shoulder injury may have been affecting him more than anyone realized. But that explanation has lost traction this season, especially with Maye and Mike Vrabel both shutting down the idea that the shoulder is still bothering him.
Whatever the cause, the Patriots need answers fast. If this keeps going, New England could be staring at a lost season before September is even over.
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Vrabel's explanation carried an edge that Patriots fans are not used to hearing from a head coach in September. He pointed to the long season ahead and said he did not believe the team was likely to win, an unusually blunt admission that lands hard for a roster still trying to find its footing. For a veteran like Moses, being taken out under those circumstances says plenty about where the game was headed, and even more about how quickly the mood around New England has shifted. [Read more 🡒]
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Patriots Put Drake Maye In A Tough Spot They Created
The Patriots spent the 2025 offseason reshaping their roster, but the changes have left Drake Maye operating with far less margin for error than the team probably intended. Releasing Stefon Diggs and trading Kayshon Boutte stripped away two of the more recognizable pass-catching options around the young quarterback, and the offense has not found an easy way to replace that production.
Mayes early-season struggles have reflected the larger problem, with interceptions piling up while the receiving group has thinned further because of the absence of key players like Diggs, Boutte and the injured A.J. Brown. For a team trying to build around a developing quarterback, the issue is not just that Maye has had to play through mistakes - it is that the Patriots have created a setup where those mistakes are much harder to absorb. [Read more 🡒]