{"id":678834,"date":"2026-01-15T09:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/678834\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T09:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:09:15","slug":"patriots-drake-maye-reflects-on-whirlwind-second-year-as-he-prepares-for-tough-texans-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/678834\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots Drake Maye reflects on whirlwind second year as he prepares for tough Texans team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHow far we&#8217;ve come.At this time last year, the New England Patriots finished the season at the bottom of the league with a 4-13 record and questions surrounding the team&#8217;s future and their quarterback.Fast forward to Wednesday, and the team is preparing to face a tough Houston Texans team in the AFC Divisional Round at Gillette Stadium.Quarterback Drake Maye said come Sunday, the team will focus on the task at hand and protecting the football.&#8221;We&#8217;ve got our hands full, we know it&#8217;s gonna be a tough game, we gotta play the game the right way,&#8221; Maye said at his weekly press conference. &#8220;They&#8217;re relentless.  They&#8217;re great up front, they&#8217;re great in the back end, they&#8217;ve got great linemen, great coaching.&#8221;Maye&#8217;s first NFL start came against the Texans, a 41-21 loss for the Patriots.In his second career postseason start, the former No. 3 overall pick said it&#8217;s been a whirlwind ever since.&#8221;That feels like, shoot, 10 years ago. It&#8217;s been a long journey,&#8221; Maye said. &#8220;We\u2019ll hopefully have a different outcome from the game, but definitely take some time to appreciate where we&#8217;ve come and how much work we still have to do, especially myself.&#8221;The 23-year-old quarterback said it&#8217;s quite the opportunity for the team to still be standing, and he looks forward to the fans bringing the noise on Sunday. And fans who spoke with NewsCenter 5 are more than ready to answer the call.&#8221;The energy is back in this area, and we&#8217;re jumping onboard with that energy, and we&#8217;re going to be here on Sunday with bells on, the Erickson family will be here!&#8221; said Andy Erickson.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tFOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>How far we&#8217;ve come.<\/p>\n<p>At this time last year, the New England Patriots finished the season at the bottom of the league with a 4-13 record and questions surrounding the team&#8217;s future and their quarterback.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to Wednesday, and the team is preparing to face a tough Houston Texans team in the AFC Divisional Round at Gillette Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Quarterback Drake Maye said come Sunday, the team will focus on the task at hand and protecting the football.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got our hands full, we know it&#8217;s gonna be a tough game, we gotta play the game the right way,&#8221; Maye said at his weekly press conference. &#8220;They&#8217;re relentless.  They&#8217;re great up front, they&#8217;re great in the back end, they&#8217;ve got great linemen, great coaching.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Maye&#8217;s first NFL start came against the Texans, a 41-21 loss for the Patriots.<\/p>\n<p>In his second career postseason start, the former No. 3 overall pick said it&#8217;s been a whirlwind ever since.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That feels like, shoot, 10 years ago. It&#8217;s been a long journey,&#8221; Maye said. &#8220;We\u2019ll hopefully have a different outcome from the game, but definitely take some time to appreciate where we&#8217;ve come and how much work we still have to do, especially myself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old quarterback said it&#8217;s quite the opportunity for the team to still be standing, and he looks forward to the fans bringing the noise on Sunday. <\/p>\n<p>And fans who spoke with NewsCenter 5 are more than ready to answer the call.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The energy is back in this area, and we&#8217;re jumping onboard with that energy, and we&#8217;re going to be here on Sunday with bells on, the Erickson family will be here!&#8221; said Andy Erickson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How far we&#8217;ve come.At this time last year, the New England Patriots finished the season at the bottom&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[34136,833,14618,99197,919,45,7,99200,12059,5104,18106,5254,221,253,2368,7502,2939,249,6,208,99198,1257,2333,3667,185,222,83786,99199,11351],"class_list":["post-678834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-texans","tag-afc-divisional-round","tag-drake-maye","tag-energy","tag-erickson-family","tag-fan","tag-fans","tag-football","tag-former-no","tag-foxborough","tag-future","tag-gillette-stadium","tag-hand","tag-houston","tag-houston-texans","tag-houstontexans","tag-massachusetts","tag-maye","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-patriots","tag-patriots-drake-maye","tag-quarterback","tag-question","tag-sunday","tag-team","tag-texans","tag-tough-game","tag-tough-texans-team","tag-wcvb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115898336280332982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678834","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=678834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}