Super Bowl 2026: Patriots' Drake Maye has been here before . . . well, sort of

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Drake Maye dreamed of going to the Super Bowl, and when his team won its conference championship, he got the chance.

That was 10 years ago. Maye, then 13 years old and growing up outside Charlotte, North Carolina, was a huge fan of the Panthers. He was along for the ride through their 15-1 regular season as Cam Newton was named the MVP in 2015, and he was in the stadium when they beat the Cardinals to win the NFC title. There was just one game left.

“My dad had said if the Panthers made it to the Super Bowl, we were going to go,” Maye recalled.

So off they went to Super Bowl 50.

It didn’t work out for him that day. The Panthers lost to the Broncos, 24-10, in Peyton Manning’s final game.

“Heartbreaking,” Maye said.

But he had another dream, too, one even more improbable than a middle-schooler hoping to score tickets to the Super Bowl. He wanted to play in one someday, too.

On Sunday, he’ll get to fulfill that aspiration in the same building where his first one took place: Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The second-year quarterback for the Patriots and runner-up to Matthew Stafford in one of the closest MVP votes in years has woken New England from its brief post-Tom Brady torpor and guided the team back to the Super Bowl.

A 13-loss team a year ago turned into a 14-win team this season, and after three more postseason victories, New England now faces the Seattle Seahawks with a chance to do something Maye’s favorite team couldn’t do a decade ago:

Finish the job.

“Pretty cool to be full circle, going back here 10 years later,” Maye said.

If he can pull it off, he will become the youngest starting quarterback to hoist the Lombardi Trophy (Ben Roethlisberger currently holds that distinction, having done it at 23 years and 340 days old; Maye is 23 years and 162 days as of this kickoff).

Of course, being the youngest is nothing new to Maye. He’s been that his whole life.

He grew up in a house with three older brothers, each of whom carved out his own legacy of athletic accomplishment. Luke, the oldest, was a basketball player at the University of North Carolina; he hit the shot that sent the Tar Heels to the Final Four in 2017. Cole pitched for the University of Florida and was a member of the College World Series-winning team in 2017. Beau also played basketball for the Tar Heels.

And Drake? He played quarterback for North Carolina. Now he does it in the NFL. And on Sunday he will do it in the Super Bowl.

“This wasn’t luck and this was never promised, but here you are after many hours grinding on your craft,” his brothers told him in a heartfelt video message posted through The Players Tribune late this past week. “All those times we talked about it growing up, you’re here living that dream, man. That’s so special.”

They weren’t always so supportive. At least it didn’t feel that way to Drake when he was getting treated as the “runt” of the family.

“I just think every two-on-two basketball game in the backyard probably prepared me for this,” Maye said of his career and the challenge on Sunday. “The joy of it, but kind of the feeling you get of accomplishing something, me beating my older brothers, or just having an opportunity to compete at a high level. I was getting beat up on. Luckily, I was the most athletic, so I could run away. They couldn’t catch me.”

Maye still has those wheels. They are a big part of why he and the Patriots are here; he was able to scramble for multiple first downs in the AFC Championship Game against the Broncos two weeks ago when the Denver defense and the snowy conditions made advancing the football otherwise nearly impossible.

“I probably realized that before I got here,” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said of Maye’s mindset and his potential. “That’s a large part of the reason that I wanted to be here. Everybody has a different skill set, and he’s comfortable in the pocket, [but] his ability to transfer up into the pocket to make moves, to make throws off platform and different angles, has been impressive. He has an athletic nature to the way that he plays the position, I think, that’s somewhat unique.”

But he also still has that spirit and attitude of the underdog, the little bro, and the scrappiness of having to fight for everything.

It’s tempting to compare Maye to other quarterbacks. Because of his uniform, the inevitable one is Brady, but he has a long way to go before those similarities extend beyond their wardrobe. Brady won a record seven Super Bowls, six with the Patriots. Maye hasn’t won any yet.

“Now that I’m in the NFL, I’m just trying to model my game after myself,” he said. “There are things you try to take from players, but I wouldn’t say I’m trying to model my game after anybody anymore. I’m at the stage now where I’m an NFL quarterback and trying to make a name for myself.”

Maye came to the San Francisco area for his first Super Bowl as a mere bystander just hoping to watch his team win.

This time he’ll have a say in the outcome.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.