Drake Maye didn’t lose to Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, or any version of Seattle’s presumed starter. He lost to Drew Lock — a backup quarterback who’d thrown three passes all of last season — and he did it by throwing three interceptions in the fourth quarter of a game the Patriots led 10-0.
New England’s season opener ended 13-10 in Seattle on Wednesday night, in a rematch of the Super Bowl the Seahawks won just seven months earlier, according to the Associated Press.
This wasn’t a loss to a superior opponent playing its best football. It was a game the Patriots handed away.
New England built a 10-0 lead and carried it into the fourth quarter, with Seattle’s offense — missing starter Sam Darnold after he injured his hip on the opening drive — managing only a single field goal through three quarters.
Then everything reversed. Lock connected with Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a 45-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 to tie the game, a drive that followed Maye’s first interception of the quarter, picked off by Nehemiah Pritchett.
Julian Love intercepted Maye again on New England’s next possession, setting up a Jason Myers field goal that put Seattle ahead 13-10, per the AP’s account of the collapse.
Maye actually responded well to the first two picks, driving New England into position for a potential game-winning or game-tying score in the final minute.
Josh Jobe ended it with a toe-tapping interception in the end zone — his third pick of the quarter. “I had to make sure I had my feet in,” Jobe said afterward. “It was a blessing,” as quoted by the AP.
None of the three picks were coverage disguises or broken plays — by New England’s own coach’s account, they were avoidable decisions.
With New England up 10-3, Maye threw into double coverage on a deep shot that Nehemiah Pritchett tipped and intercepted near Seattle’s 10-yard line.
On the next drive, facing third-and-14 after a drop by newly acquired receiver Romeo Doubs, Maye again looked deep instead of taking the easier underneath option, and Julian Love read it for an easy interception, according to Yahoo Sports’ breakdown of the collapse.
The third came under pressure, with Maye throwing off his back foot into the end zone rather than throwing the ball away — a decision that, had he simply taken the sack or thrown it out of bounds, would have left New England with a look at a 34-yard field goal to force overtime instead of a season-opening loss.
Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel didn’t soften it afterward: “We want to be aggressive and not reckless,” he told reporters, before adding plainly, “You can’t throw three interceptions. Drake knows that,” per Yahoo Sports’ postgame coverage.
Context usually softens a rough quarter. Here, it does the opposite. Seattle’s offense was, by its own performance through three quarters, genuinely bad — a single field goal, a backup quarterback who barely played last season, and a starter knocked out early.
This wasn’t the explosive Seahawks attack that beat New England for the Lombardi Trophy last February. It was a diminished version of that team, and New England still found a way to lose, because its own quarterback handed the game away three separate times in twelve minutes of game clock.
That’s the detail that should worry the Patriots more than the final score. A team that loses a shootout to an opponent playing well has an explanation.
A team that leads 10-0, watches the other side struggle to move the ball for three quarters, and still loses because of turnovers has a different kind of problem — one that has nothing to do with the opponent’s talent level and everything to do with what happens in New England’s own huddle when the game tightens.
There’s also an uncomfortable pattern forming specifically against this opponent. Seattle’s defense also dominated Maye in last February’s Super Bowl, and Wednesday’s collapse means the Seahawks have now gotten the better of him in the two biggest games of his career against them, per Yardbarker’s postgame takeaways.
Whether that’s a genuine scheme problem or a coincidence of two high-stakes games will only get answered the next time these teams meet — but it’s one more reason this loss carries more weight than a typical Week 1 stumble.
Three interceptions in twelve minutes doesn’t undo what Maye showed last season, when he finished as the runner-up for MVP, as the AP’s report itself notes. It also doesn’t erase the response drive he led after the first two picks, which showed real composure under pressure rather than a quarterback who’d mentally checked out. The talent and the competitiveness clearly aren’t the issue.
What is worth worrying about is decision-making in exactly the moments New England will need Maye to be at his sharpest if this team is serious about getting back to the Super Bowl.
Protecting a 10-0 lead against a backup quarterback and a struggling offense is precisely the kind of fourth quarter a contending team is supposed to close out, not blow open.
If the Patriots’ path back to the Super Bowl runs through Maye — and every indication from last season says it does — this is the exact type of game he needs to be closing out, not unraveling.
One bad quarter in a season opener isn’t a crisis, and framing it as one would be an overreaction to a single game against a team that had every excuse to be flat.
New England spent this entire offseason being built around the idea that Maye had already made the leap from promising rookie to legitimate franchise quarterback.
Wednesday night complicated that story, not because Maye lacks the ability, but because it showed exactly how a talented, competitive quarterback can still hand a winnable game away three times in a row when it matters most.
That’s the version of Maye the Patriots need to make sure doesn’t show up again.
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