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.