Drake Maye hears ‘MVP’ chants, leads Pats to 8th straight win

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Quarterback Drake Maye strengthened his position as the favorite to win the NFL’s MVP award with another impressive performance, as the New England Patriots’ turnaround continued with a 27-14 win over the visiting New York Jets on Thursday night, lifting the team to an NFL-best 9-2 record.

The Patriots have won eight games in a row, breaking a tie with the Denver Broncos for the league’s longest current winning streak. After finishing 4-13 in each of the past two seasons, the Patriots are just the fourth team in the past 25 years to win nine of their first 11 games after having four or fewer wins in the previous season, joining the 2013 Kansas City Chiefs, 2016 Dallas Cowboys and 2019 San Francisco 49ers.

Though such a reversal has taken many by surprise, that isn’t the case for Maye, who completed his first 11 passes and finished 25-of-34 for 281 yards with 1 TD and 0 INTs.

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“I don’t think anything has surprised me,” Maye said. “When you put the work in, and we have good players and good coaches, you are going to get a result that you want.”

Over the past 20 years, Maye became just the fourth quarterback in his first or second NFL season to lead his team to eight straight victories and have his team score at least 20 points in each of those games. Dallas’ Dak Prescott (10 straight in 2016), Philadelphia’s Carson Wentz (nine straight in 2017) and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson (eight straight in 2019) were the others.

“I would say his performance, in general, has been what we expect,” said Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, who was credited by multiple players after Thursday’s win for instilling a culture in his first year as New England’s coach that was a catalyst for the franchise’s turnaround. “We have high expectations for Drake. He has high expectations for himself.

“He’ll continue to improve. I know that he’ll stay humble through this all. … We just have to continue to focus on the little things, operation, unforced errors throughout the offense. The only thing that really stops us is us offensively.”

Maye, 23, is completing 71.8% of his passes this season, and has 20 touchdowns and just five interceptions. In 13 games last season, he had 10 interceptions. Vrabel and Patriots assistant coaches have noted his improved ball security, which is one of the pillars of Vrabel’s desired team identity.

As he often does, Maye deflected credit Thursday night, praising teammates such as rookie running back TreVeyon Henderson, who joined tight end Rob Gronkowski (2010) and running back Sony Michel (2018, playoffs) as the only rookies in franchise history to score three touchdowns in a game.

But Patriots fans serenaded him with chants of “MVP! MVP! MVP!” which his teammates amplified after the game.

“He’s playing at an elite level right now,” rookie left tackle Will Campbell said. “I’m biased, but I think he’s the best player in the NFL. There’s no game that we’re out of when we have him.”