Plenty of questions swirled about Drake Maye and his throwing shoulder ahead of Super Bowl 2026.
He answered one of them after the Patriots’ ugly loss.
Maye told reporters after the 29-13 defeat to the Seahawks that he received a pain-killing injection in his shoulder before the contest and didn’t feel any issues during play at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday.
“My shoulder feels — they shot it up, so not much feeling,” he said. “It was good to go, and felt alright.”
Whether or not the shoulder affected him during the loss, the results were far from pretty. He completed 27-of-43 passes for 295 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, also fumbling once. He finished with a 79.1 quarterback rating, benefiting a little bit from garbage-time completions in the fourth quarter when the game was all but decided.
Questions arose after the Patriots’ AFC Championship game win when Maye was listed as a “limited” participant in a hypothetical Patriots practice on Jan. 28. Two days later, Maye missed a real practice, reportedly for the first time all season with what head coach Mike Vrabel said was due to a combination of “injury and illness.”
By Monday, though, Maye was throwing and downplayed any concern that he wouldn’t be ready for the Big Game.
“I feel good. I’ll be just fine. I threw a good bit,” Maye said of his workout before appearing at Super Bowl 2026 Opening Night. “I threw as much as I would in a normal practice, and it felt great.”
Two days before the Super Bowl, Maye did not have an injury designation.
The North Carolina product was bottled up by a stout Seahawks defense from the first snap, as he was sacked six times. The two interceptions Sunday marked his first multi-pick game since Week 9 — in 2024.
Overall, Maye, who finished second in the NFL MVP vote behind Matthew Stafford, did not have a spectacular postseason.
Coming into the night, he’d completed just 55.8 percent of his passes with four touchdowns and two interceptions over three playoff games.
The 295 yards he threw Sunday actually were the second-most in a game this year for him, but most of it was too little, too late.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
