There’s no doubt that Drake Maye’s issues this season are more mental than physical.
His two interceptions in the end zone — in Week 1 to Seattle’s Josh Jobe, and in Week 3 to Travis Hunter — were poor decisions, not poor throws. His fumbles remain as big of an issue as ever, and the decision-making in the pocket has been nearly nonexistent just a year after the football world watched Maye rip downfield throw after downfield throw with extreme confidence all season long.
Yet even with that being the case, Maye also hasn’t been physically delivering passes down the field the way that he did a year ago. And considering the end of his 2025 postseason was affected by a shoulder injury, the question of whether or not the 24-year-old is fully healthy has resurfaced in recent days.
And the answers are … fuzzy.
Here’s a timeline over the past two days with everything Maye himself and head coach Mike Vrabel have said about the quarterback’s throwing arm.
Drake Maye, Sunday postgame
Q: Drake, physically, the right shoulder, just going back to the Super Bowl, do you feel like that has any lingering effect this season for you?
Maye: Yeah, I mean, I like to say when you have that much time off and you get to focus on getting back, that you’re going out there healthy. And you know you’re gonna get banged up every now and then, but at the same time, a lot of guys are banged up. So, looking forward to getting back to playing winning football. That’s the main thing. And knowing that I play a big role in that, and taking that, and taking the bull by its horns.
Q: Does your shoulder feel as good now as it did before that injury?
Maye: Yeah, I wouldn’t say there’s a problem with my shoulder. I think there’s times where, you know, I think you look back and you look back on the playoff run and that Denver game when I took the hit, and to now, I mean, I felt good during training camp. And I’ll continue to let it loose.
Mike Vrabel, WEEI, Monday morning
Vrabel: I can’t speak on what his shoulder feels like. That’s nothing that I even have ever heard anything about.
Mike Vrabel, press conference, Monday morning
Q: Are you aware of any lingering shoulder problem with Drake, dating back to the Denver game?
Vrabel: No. No, I’m not. And I think when you go through an NFL game like that, especially as a quarterback, and you get hit — and again, there was not, to my knowledge, anything that would have put him on the injury report or any sort of treatment. I think every player has normal maintenance and prehab that they go through as a warmup routine. So, that’s not anything that I would even consider. But I know as you go through a game, I’m sure you get hit. I’m sure things happen. But I don’t anticipate that being any issue going forward.
Drake Maye, WEEI, Monday afternoon
Q: I just want to clarify something from yesterday. When you said that you don’t believe there’s a problem with your shoulder, are you saying your right shoulder and throwing arm feel 100 percent physically the same as they did before the injury with no lingering loss of strength or velocity or range of motion, or is there any difference at all?
Maye: Yeah, I mean, similar question, the way I answered it in the postgame. I think that we gotta — I don’t think it has anything to do with executing and playing better football and realizing that that’s the biggest thing that contributes to winning.
Q: But I think that people were confused by your answer yesterday, and I guess they were left wondering, do you feel the same as you did before your injury? Or is there still something that’s lingering?
Maye: Any time I’m out there and I’m dressed and in uniform on the field, I’m gonna play 100 percent and give it my all. So that’s kind of what I have to say.
Q: Is it something that you’re managing every day?
Maye: Uh, I mean, any time that you come out from a game and you’re sore, everybody’s dealing with things from the game. So I wouldn’t say that it’s anything in particular. I think just getting back out there and really just getting ready for this week of practice.
Phil Perry, Tom E. Curran, Ted Johnson and Michael Holley break down Drake Maye’s shocking performance in the Patriots’ 35-6 loss to the Jaguars.
It would not have been hard for Maye — both on Sunday, and a full day later — to say something to the effect of, “My shoulder is fine, I am not injured.” Instead, he’s said much more without actually saying much, thus raising several eyebrows about the status of his shoulder.
Obviously, a shoulder injury wouldn’t explain why Maye has stacked poor decisions on top of poor decisions through the first three weeks of the season, but it would explain some of the misfires. And, more significantly, it would raise some questions about the Patriots’ offseason handling of the shoulder injury that Maye suffered in the AFC Championship Game.
Vrabel did his best to try to squash any speculation about a shoulder injury for Maye, but the quarterback himself passed up on several opportunities to do the same.
