{"id":501687,"date":"2026-01-08T16:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501687\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:16:14","slug":"patriots-drake-maye-earns-end-of-season-honor-over-matthew-stafford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501687\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots&#8217; Drake Maye Earns End-Of-Season Honor Over Matthew Stafford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Drake Maye will enter the fold for most major awards after a superb second season. The New England Patriots quarterback received the first of potentially many nods on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Next Gen Stats <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/next-gen-stats-2025-all-pro-team-offense\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">named Maye<\/a> to its 2025 NFL All-Pro Team. The only Patriots player selected, Maye beat out <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/drake-maye-makes-his-case-for-why-he-deserves-to-be-nfl-mvp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MVP competitor <\/a>Matthew Stafford for the roster\u2019s lone quarterback spot.<\/p>\n<p>Next Gen Stats explained why it named Maye its top signal-caller based on advanced data.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaye and Matthew Stafford each made outstanding cases for the title of top quarterback in the NFL this season, but the Patriots\u2019 second-year star elevated his team to such a degree that he gained the edge,\u201d Next Gen Stats wrote. \u201cMaye was the first QB since Patrick Mahomes in 2018 to generate +200 EPA on his passes, finishing with +203.1. He was a completion machine despite a high degree of difficulty, leading the NFL with 112 downfield completions and 99 completions under pressure. As a result, Maye\u2019s 72% completion rate was +9.1% over expected, the highest mark by any QB in the Next Gen Stats era (since 2016).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maye beats Stafford in most efficiency categories, posting a higher completion percentage and yards per pass attempt (8.9) with a superior quarterback rating (113.5). They each finished with eight interceptions, but Stafford tallied a league-leading 4,707 passing yards and 46 passing touchdowns, 15 more than Maye.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Stafford ended the regular season as a <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/patriots-drake-maye-mike-vrabel-among-award-odds-favorites\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">betting favorite<\/a> to win MVP for the first time in his 17th season. But Maye will garner plenty of support for the prestigious award as both quarterbacks prepare for playoff action this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drake Maye will enter the fold for most major awards after a superb second season. The New England&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":501688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[29345,1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-501687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-drake-maye","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115860379075796906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}