The night had been perfectly set for Drake Maye to finally lead the New England Patriots out of Tom Brady‘s shadow by the man himself.
In a staggering PR misstep, Brady insulted the fanbase that once worshipped him by saying he had ‘no dog in the race’ at the Super Bowl. But even if Brady didn’t care if the Patriots won, he wouldn’t have wished this on their young quarterback, who was fighting back tears in the locker room while the Seahawks’ confetti was falling.
As Maye ran out into the cool Californian air and onto the biggest stage of all on Sunday night, it didn’t take long to sense something wasn’t quite right.
Was it nerves? Maybe the lingering shoulder issue hadn’t cleared up quite as much as he had insisted. Or perhaps it was just that the brilliant Seattle Seahawks defense were too much for Maye, who at only 23 will need building back up from this.
From the very start, it looked like play was unfolding at warp speed in front of him. He was all over the place.
When he ran with the ball, he scurried anxiously into trouble or down a blind alley. When he tried to let it fly, it went nowhere. And if he scanned the field, the Seahawks defense broke through, sacking him three times in the first half alone.
It was a horrid night for Drake Maye as the New England Patriots lost the Super Bowl
Maye, 23, was bullied by a brutal Seattle Seahawks defense on the night in Santa Clara
Patriots legend Tom Brady insulted the fanbase with comments earlier in the week
No quarterback in Super Bowl history had recovered from that to end the night lifting the Lombardi Trophy. And no team in the game had ever gone scoreless in the first half and ended up winners. Maye and the Patriots never once looked like breaking the trend.
The third sack, five minutes into the second quarter, felt like the first nail in the coffin for New England.
It was an extraordinary display of power from the Seahawks defensive tackle Rylie Mills, excellent on the night, as he held off a block and surged towards Maye before hauling him down, sparking pandemonium on the Seahawks bench.
Maye could only pick himself up, once again, and throw his hands out in frustration. The Seahawks bench was going wild, while Mills was mobbed by his teammates just feet away from the sorry sight of Maye.
When Maye returned to the field for the next drive, he started with his left foot on his own goal line. Six plays later and punter Bryce Baringer was back out on the field to try and put the fire out once again. Nothing was working and a longer halftime break didn’t help.
With four minutes to go in the third quarter, on a third and fourth on his own 33-yard line, Maye tried to sling it short to his wide receiver Kayshon Boutte. Again, Boutte had too much to do, his fingertips sending the ball spinning away and into the ground.
Boutte wasn’t hurt, but he took a second to wearily climb back to his feet. He looked a beaten man and the Patriots looked like a beaten team as the Seahawks fans who had taken over Levi’s erupted once more.
On the next Patriots drive, Derrick Hall punched the ball out of Maye’s grasp as he sacked him with seconds left in the third quarter. It was a steep, merciless learning curve and at this point, it was getting hard to watch.
Rylie Mills sacks Darnold in the second quarter in a moment that symbolized his struggle
Maye was sacked three times in a brutal first half and it didn’t get any better later in the game
Thankfully, he found something at the start of the fourth quarter. After a streaker had caused a delay in the game by rampaging about 80 yards down the field, Maye launched a 35-yard dart to Mack Hollins for a touchdown.
If nothing else, it kept another unwanted accolade away from his resume – the Patriots had been in real danger of becoming the first team that failed to score in a Super Bowl.
But it was only a moment of respite. Maye later had a pass intercepted by linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, who rampaged down the field and into the endzone for his first ever touchdown.
Just before the two-minute warning, Maye tossed a pass to running back Rhamondre Stevenson for a consolation touchdown but at this point, it mattered little.
Perhaps Brady, watching from a VIP suite, might reach out to Maye when the pain of everything going wrong is a little less raw. For his part, he would have been relieved to hear the cheers from the Patriots fans who had made it out west when he was announced onto the field moments before the Green Day pregame show.
Earlier in the week, he was slammed from all corners of the New England empire for bafflingly insisting he didn’t mind who won between the Patriots team who built a statue of him outside their stadium or the Seahawks.
For a man who is so desperate to always say the right thing, it was an astonishing error. He was, rightly, slammed by everyone from Dave Portnoy to the Patriots linebacker Robert Spillane, who said it made him ‘sick’. Had he simply backed his old team, nobody would have thought twice. How he must regret it.
Maye picks himself up off the ground on a night that couldn’t have gone much worse
The 23-year-old quarterback will need rebuilding by his team after a humiliating game
And then on Saturday night, his Super Bowl weekend took another twist with his personal life back in the headlines.
He was filmed renewing his friendship, or whatever else it might be, with influencer Alix Earle – who herself made it onto the field as a dancer in Bad Bunny’s halftime show – a little over a month after they were spotted getting handsy in St. Barths on New Year’s Eve. It’s not something Brady nor the Patriots fans who helped make him into what he is enjoy seeing but neither have a choice these days.
When he gets on his private jet and flies out of San Francisco, Brady may well take comfort knowing his Patriots legacy remains as it was.
Maye’s era, meanwhile, will be defined by how he responds from his San Francisco humbling. The 29-13 scoreline will say there was 16 points betweeen these two teams, but Maye will know it was really an awful lot more than that.
