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The Patriots have definitively moved on from the last vestiges of the Tom Brady–Bill Belichick era into a dynamic new one as the NFL’s team second-year quarterback and first-year head coach are quickly reshaping the league.
New England won its eighth straight game Thursday night, beating the Jets at home 27–14 and becoming the first NFL team with nine victories this season. The Patriots’ resurgence is one of the league’s dominant storylines this year, and it marks a major turnaround for the six-time Super Bowl winners after three straight non-playoff seasons—the last two sinking to ugly 13-loss campaigns. The current winning streak matches their longest since 2019, Tom Brady’s final season with the team.
Fueling the rapid turnaround is 23-year-old quarterback Drake Maye. Drafted last year from North Carolina with the No. 3 pick, Maye has elevated from an uneven rookie campaign to one this season where he is now the betting favorite to win the NFL Most Valuable Player award, topping veteran stars such as Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and Colts running back Jonathan Taylor. Maye was showered with “MVP” chants from fans Thursday as he closed out the win over the Jets.
“He’s playing at an elite level right now,” Patriots tackle Will Campbell said of Maye. “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.”
Like some other young standouts in the NFL, Maye is far outperforming his current contract, but the disparity is even more pronounced given he’s a quarterback. Still in the second season of a four-year, rookie-level deal, Maye will earn an average annual value of $9.2 million through the 2027 season. While that’s the current league scale for his professional tenure and draft position, it’s also a mere fraction of top NFL quarterback salaries that now routinely exceed $50 million.
There is a team option in Maye’s deal for the 2028 season, and he is not due to become an unrestricted free agent until 2029.
Sideline Matters
The other key element of the New England revival is head coach Mike Vrabel. A standout linebacker for the Patriots in the early 2000s, during the first part of the Patriots dynasty, Vrabel returned to the Patriots early this year amid a period of marked turbulence and reappraisal for the franchise.
Brady has moved on to the Raiders, a team where he’s a part-owner, and he has his broadcasting position for Fox Sports. Former head coach Bill Belichick had an ugly end to his tenure in New England, and he has experienced plenty more turbulence during his current stint in North Carolina. Patriots owner Robert Kraft had looked indecisive, too, as the team sought to rebuild.
The choice to move on from Jerod Mayo—another former Patriots star and the initial designated successor to Belichick—after just a year and bring back Vrabel after his prior challenges in Tennessee and Cleveland is paying dividends far quicker than expected. Like Maye, Vrabel is the current betting favorite for NFL Coach of the Year.
“[Vrabel] has done an amazing job. Even just coming in from [organized team activities], he stood in here, told us what we’re going to do, about building a team, building connections, and getting close,” said Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez. “As not just a former player but a great player, he knows how to get people going.”
The Patriots have a rather soft schedule the rest of the way, with a Dec. 14 home game against the Bills standing as the team’s toughest remaining game. There is at least one primetime contest remaining for New England, a Dec. 1 Monday Night Football game against the Giants, but it’s easy to see the team potentially getting flexed into additional top broadcast slots.
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