Drake Maye's Greatness Has Raiders Owner Tom Brady Believing in the Patriots and Mocking Those Who Ever Doubted Them

Ron Jenkins. Getty Images.

It's been a common theme of the last couple of years that New England's relationship with Tom Brady has gotten … complicated. For every Patriots fan he's been gracious and charming to:

… there's been a story or two that give you a full-body cringe and wonder if you're losing him. Like a lifelong friend who starts running with a bad crowd or takes up with Miss Wrong, and you see him starting to change for the worse. Stories like this:

Or this:

That make you want to have a man-to-man talk with him, like this:

I bring all this complicated baggage up now to offer hope that Brady is turning it back around. Becoming less the stranger who said "I have no dog in the fight" ahead of Super Bowl LX and more the familiar face carved into bronze beneath the lighthouse who declared in a loud, unambiguous voice, "I'm a Patriot for life!"

And like most good things in this life in the Year of Our Lord 2026, we have the excellence of Drake Maye to thank for it. 

In that Fox interview show that he does with the guy who looks and talks like Jonah Ryan from Veep, the GOAT has gotten effusive in his praise for his successor to the Patriots throne. Ridiculing anyone who doubted Maye during his three-game slump as he moved the Pats up to 7th in his power rankings:

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"A tale as old as time in New England. I've heard it before. I was there when it happened. The sky's falling in September. And the Pats are dead in the water. Until they aren't. Drake, you responded so great. It was the first real slump, early in the season. But he's throwing the ball with confidence now once again, and the whole team is feeding off it." 

And then this week, doubling down on the praise as he moved the Patriots ahead of Buffalo into 4th place in his rankings:

… Pats all of a sudden? I think so.” Brady has the Pats at number four in his power rankings ahead of the #Bills. 

I'm going to be honest with you. I actually double checked these clips. I traced them back to the source to make sure they were authentic. The reason being that they were so perfectly what these old ears wanted to hear that I needed to confirm they're not AI-generated. 

Which makes me feel a bit silly, given that Brady is the World's Foremost Authority on quarterbacking. And his own biases aside as the guy who's paying Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza to do it, professionalism and respect for the position both make it impossible for him not to acknowledge greatness when he sees it. 

After all, excellence like this can't be overlooked:

It doesn't always take one to know one. But in the case of the last two quarterbacks to lead the Patriots to a Super Bowl, I'll take it. Game, as they say, recognizing game. And the respect is mutual:

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… way he approached the game.” 

“Being able for me to ask him questions and call him all the time would be a disservice to what he did and how he did in his time here in New England at such a high level for such a long time, and, you know, the greatest to play the position.” 

“He set the standard of playing the position in the NFL, at the highest level there ever is, and people are trying to chase him. So it’s our job to try to learn and pick up things that he did and try to match it.” 

For some franchises, it takes decades to find even one true Franchise QB. Or to replace the one you once had. In the grannd scheme of things, New England pulled it off in the blink of an eye. Thanks to Brady for acknowledging it. And to Maye for helping bring our GOAT back.