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Nick Wright Predicts 'Step Back' For Patriots' Drake Maye Next Season originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Nick Wright does not anticipate a full encore from Drake Maye in 2026.
Maye finished his second NFL season second in the MVP voting and steered the New England Patriots to an AFC championship. He'll have a tough act to follow next season, so Wright expects the young quarterback to regress.
The Fox Sports pundit explained why Maye and the Patriots will backpedal on Wednesday's "First Things First."
"I think, across the board, he will take a step back next year," Wright said. "I think he will not look as eye-popping on the deep passes like he did early. I think his numbers will take a huge hit. I think the team’s record will take a huge hit, and I think there will be -- particularly early in the season -- some real scar tissue from the playoff run and Super Bowl and what that did to his early-season confidence."
Wright compared Maye to Brock Purdy when noting that quarterback development often isn't linear. Purdy also went to the Super Bowl in his second season, but the San Francisco 49ers missed the playoffs the following year.
While Wright previously called Maye a top-five quarterback, he changed his stance after watching a rocky postseason run. Maye completed just 58.3 percent of his passes in the playoffs and lost four of seven fumbles.
"When I was saying he was gonna be a top-five quarterback, what I did not anticipate was the most fumbles in the playoffs in league history, one of the worst completion percentages in the playoffs in league history and what I thought was four straight bad games," Wright said.
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