{"id":1047366,"date":"2026-11-06T11:39:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T11:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1047366\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T11:39:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T11:39:19","slug":"drake-mayes-early-season-turnaround-earns-him-october-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1047366\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Maye\u2019s early-season turnaround earns him October honors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The award comes after Maye led the Patriots to a 3-1 record, completing 67.2% of his passes for 1,199 yards, 12 touchdowns and just two interceptions. He also added 129 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Maye became the first Patriot to earn the honor since Tom Brady during the 2017 season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cThat\u2019s something to be proud of for Drake,\u201d Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said. \u201cI always look at those things as team achievements. Certainly nobody\u2019s going to win an individual award in football without all the guys that do their jobs around him. I think you celebrate that as a group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cHe\u2019s certainly deserving of it, and a lot of credit to him for just kind of improving as September finished and got into the next month of the season. A lot of little things he did better, and hopefully we can continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It marked a significant turnaround for Maye after the 24-year-old struggled to open the season. The quarterback was perhaps the biggest reason the Patriots found themselves with a 1-2 record through the first three weeks, throwing just one touchdown against six interceptions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Improved ball security has been one of the biggest factors in Maye\u2019s resurgence. He has thrown just one interception over the last four weeks, while his 1.2% turnover-worthy play rate in October ranked third among qualified quarterbacks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Additionally, Maye\u2019s trademark deep ball has returned despite the Patriots losing several of their top pass catchers to injuries, while has has operated as one of the league\u2019s better quarterbacks when dealing with pressure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cHe has worked really diligently for two years now on becoming a better passer from the pocket,\u201d McDaniels said. \u201cEverybody talks about how his athleticism is, and it\u2019s great, and he made another great play outside the pocket last week. But I\u2019d say he\u2019d probably be more excited about the one that he slid to the right and climbed up into the pocket, and makes the throw down the field to Kyle [Williams]. So I think he\u2019s worked really hard at it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI think it\u2019s repetition and I think it\u2019s confidence in the protections. I think that\u2019s where it stems from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Maye\u2019s November started strong as well as he scored three total touchdowns to lead a come from behind win in Miami. The quarterback will look to keep things going against the Green Bay Packers this Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The award comes after Maye led the Patriots to a 3-1 record, completing 67.2% of his passes for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1047367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,726,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":["post-1047366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-england-patriots","tag-football","tag-new-england","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","tag-new-england-patriots-news","tag-newengland","tag-newenglandpatriots","tag-nfl","tag-patriots"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117569307505741828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1047367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}