NFL MVP voters select a winner based on regular-season merit, leaving playoff performance ostensibly out of sight.
If New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye tackles his greatest challenge to date in Sunday’s AFC Divisional clash with Houston, however, he’ll have earned other accolades befitting his rising star.
Maye leads the second-seeded Patriots into a matchup against the Texans and their elite defense after steering a remarkable turnaround. New England went 14-3 this season, an inverse of its record from 2024, when Maye started 12 games as a rookie.
Maye brings accuracy, mobility, and assuredness after passing for 268 yards and a touchdown and gaining 66 yards on the ground to lead the Patriots to a 16-3 win against the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card round.
That sort of stat line makes it easy to forget how Maye sputtered against visiting Houston in his first career start last season.
Maye joked that the Week 6 game “feels like 10 years ago” but still recalled “kind of just trying to stay alive out there.”
He gamely gained composure, passing for three TDs. But there also was the matter of those two interceptions and four sacks — three by defensive end Will Anderson Jr. — in a 41-21 defeat.
Danielle Hunter sacked Maye that day, too, and with Anderson Jr. has sparked one of the top edge-rushing tandems in the league. The duo combined for 27 sacks during the regular season for a defense that yielded the fewest yards in the NFL (5,079) and allowed the second-stingiest average points per game (17.4).
The experience of last season notwithstanding, Maye realizes what the Houston ‘D’ brings to the table.
“They fly around. They’re relentless,” he said. “They’re great up front, and great on the back end. They’ve got great linebackers. They’re great all-around. They have great coaching. So we’ve got our hands full, and we know it’s going to be a tough game.”
Houston recognizes that Maye is much improved, too, with linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair using a comparison from the kitchen to note Maye’s tangible boost in confidence.
“That’s anybody with anything when you do something, you know,” Al-Shaair said. “You bake a cake for the first time, probably mess it up, and then you do it again, do it again, do it again, and it looks better, tastes better next time.”
Given his nimble ways in the pocket and 4.4 yards per carry in the regular season, the 6-foot-4, 225-pound Maye likely built his stature on something other than sweets.
Whatever the case, the Texans are bracing to face more than a budding pocket passer.
“These dudes now are big, strong, fast. He’s literally bigger than me, stronger than me, probably just as fast,” said Al-Shaair, who’s listed at 6-2, 228. “And this is a quarterback, you know. I’m a linebacker.
“So, I think you see stuff like that and then you also see the ability to throw the ball downfield and you mix that up with the play calling that they have and the run game that they have and it just complements everything well. That’s why he’s in the position he’s in.”
A victory Sunday would put the Patriots one win away from their first Super Bowl in the post–Bill Belichick/Tom Brady era.
That could elevate Maye to legend status in New England whether he takes MVP honors or not.
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![Stephanie White blasts officials after ‘cheap shots’ on Caitlin Clark INDIANAPOLIS — After a second straight game defined largely by non-basketball plays involving Caitlin Clark, Fever head coach Stephanie White hit her breaking point.Wednesday’s 111-109 loss to the Mercury featured Clark leaving with an injury midway through the third quarter. Still plenty took place before then.A pair of incidents in the second quarter saw Clark take a beating before eventually leaving the game with a back injury. White unloaded on the officials in her postgame press conference, calling the lack of calls “egregious” and “utterly disrespectful.”“We have a generational talent and a WNBA superstar who had two cheap shots right there that weren’t called,” White said. “And I just say again, absolutely unacceptable.“We spent all offseason looking at officiating. All offseason. And I still say the one thing that we keep asking for is consistency. She is not called the same way everybody else is called.”First, Clark and Alyssa Thomas got tangled in the paint while battling for a loose ball in a sequence that saw Thomas push her fist into Clark’s neck, knee her in the stomach and then step over her. No foul was called and the play wasn’t reviewed.One possession later, Clark was fouled on a 3-pointer, leading to an awkward landing. Clark, who has dealt with a back injury most of the season, was slow to get up and looked to be in discomfort. The officials reviewed the play, but not for a potential flagrant foul or a landing zone violation.Instead, the review was for a potential hostile act by Clark for hitting her defender in the face.She remained in the game and even started the second half. However, Clark left near the midway point of the quarter and was ruled out for the rest of the game due to the back injury. White did not have an update on Clark’s status after the game.All of this came on the heels of these two teams having multiple scuffles in their meeting on Monday, resulting in a slew of technical fouls and plenty of bad blood.“Number one, you got to call [the foul on Thomas],” White said. “It’s absolutely egregious and utterly disrespectful. And then No. 2, you’re coming in here aware of what happened two nights ago and that s— still happens? Absolutely unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable.“And the reckless closeout that they’ve actually reviewed, and the foot still comes down on top of the defender’s foot that wasn’t upgraded? Absolutely disrespectful.”White is not new to calling out officials. Last season, she also called the officiating “disrespectful” following a controversial late play against the Liberty. Nearly a month later, following a game that saw multiple technicals, flagrants and ejections against the Sun, White again criticized the officials for not improving along with the rest of the league.White has also defended her star player this season, but never as passionately as she did on Wednesday.“Because they were so egregious,” White said of what was different this time. “I mean, the fist in the throat is crazy. It’s crazy. It’s dangerous. The landing spot, when you went to review it and she still comes down on top of another foot. Like, I don’t know, cause to me, that’s like a do-over on a test. How do you screw it up again?”When you have these things continue to happen time and time and time and time and time again, eventually it gets frustrating, but I thought those were just more egregious.”Frustration this season has piled up for the Fever, who fell to 10-7 with the loss. Indiana has struggled to string together wins and set the league record for most losses when scoring 100+ points in a season on Wednesday.But, too often, the game itself is taking a back seat to moments like Wednesday’s. And for White, enough was enough. #Stephanie #White #blasts #officials #cheap #shots #Caitlin #Clark](https://i0.wp.com/platform.sbnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/imagn-29265574.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.745438151648%2C100%2C78.509123696704&w=1200&ssl=1 "Stephanie White blasts officials after ‘cheap shots’ on Caitlin Clark INDIANAPOLIS — After a second straight game defined largely by non-basketball plays involving Caitlin Clark, Fever head coach Stephanie White hit her breaking point.Wednesday’s 111-109 loss to the Mercury featured Clark leaving with an injury midway through the third quarter. Still plenty took place before then.A pair of incidents in the second quarter saw Clark take a beating before eventually leaving the game with a back injury. White unloaded on the officials in her postgame press conference, calling the lack of calls “egregious” and “utterly disrespectful.”“We have a generational talent and a WNBA superstar who had two cheap shots right there that weren’t called,” White said. “And I just say again, absolutely unacceptable.“We spent all offseason looking at officiating. All offseason. And I still say the one thing that we keep asking for is consistency. She is not called the same way everybody else is called.”First, Clark and Alyssa Thomas got tangled in the paint while battling for a loose ball in a sequence that saw Thomas push her fist into Clark’s neck, knee her in the stomach and then step over her. No foul was called and the play wasn’t reviewed.One possession later, Clark was fouled on a 3-pointer, leading to an awkward landing. Clark, who has dealt with a back injury most of the season, was slow to get up and looked to be in discomfort. The officials reviewed the play, but not for a potential flagrant foul or a landing zone violation.Instead, the review was for a potential hostile act by Clark for hitting her defender in the face.She remained in the game and even started the second half. However, Clark left near the midway point of the quarter and was ruled out for the rest of the game due to the back injury. White did not have an update on Clark’s status after the game.All of this came on the heels of these two teams having multiple scuffles in their meeting on Monday, resulting in a slew of technical fouls and plenty of bad blood.“Number one, you got to call [the foul on Thomas],” White said. “It’s absolutely egregious and utterly disrespectful. And then No. 2, you’re coming in here aware of what happened two nights ago and that s— still happens? Absolutely unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable.“And the reckless closeout that they’ve actually reviewed, and the foot still comes down on top of the defender’s foot that wasn’t upgraded? Absolutely disrespectful.”White is not new to calling out officials. Last season, she also called the officiating “disrespectful” following a controversial late play against the Liberty. Nearly a month later, following a game that saw multiple technicals, flagrants and ejections against the Sun, White again criticized the officials for not improving along with the rest of the league.White has also defended her star player this season, but never as passionately as she did on Wednesday.“Because they were so egregious,” White said of what was different this time. “I mean, the fist in the throat is crazy. It’s crazy. It’s dangerous. The landing spot, when you went to review it and she still comes down on top of another foot. Like, I don’t know, cause to me, that’s like a do-over on a test. How do you screw it up again?”When you have these things continue to happen time and time and time and time and time again, eventually it gets frustrating, but I thought those were just more egregious.”Frustration this season has piled up for the Fever, who fell to 10-7 with the loss. Indiana has struggled to string together wins and set the league record for most losses when scoring 100+ points in a season on Wednesday.But, too often, the game itself is taking a back seat to moments like Wednesday’s. And for White, enough was enough. #Stephanie #White #blasts #officials #cheap #shots #Caitlin #Clark")
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