ORCHARD PARK, NY - Though he hardly did it alone, Drake Maye checked another box off his laundry list of “must-dos.” The second-year quarterback recorded his first-ever game-winning drive, and he just so happened to do it in the most challenging environment in the league, Buffalo’s Highmark Stadium. The Bills had won 14 straight in this soon-to-be retired cement relic of a bygone era. That streak is no more.
“Shoot, just trusting the guys around me,” Maye said afterward. “I grew up - my dad, my brothers always said, you know, in basketball or baseball, the last play, the last shot, you want the ball in my hands. So I'm not gonna lose that mindset."
Maye and the Pats offense got the ball with 2:12 remaining in the game with the score tied at 20. The Bills' PA system had blared the team's unofficial theme song, "Mr. Brightside." Not only were the fans in the stands singing it, but the players on the sidelines were belting it out as well. Then came the train whistle, and 76,000 fans, almost all of them in white, reached a decibel level to match. Maye, however, was unfazed, casually leading a 7-play, 37-yard drive while the league's reigning MVP and the closest thing we've seen to Superman since, well, Superman, watching helplessly.
“I seen a young quarterback take a step in the right direction,” Stefon Diggs said of Maye. “They did a lot of comparisons during the week, and I feel like it was a hell of a comparison to be compared to Josh Allen. But as you come into your own, Drake Maye has to be Drake Maye, you know, and I was just so proud of him coming in here and leading the team…”
The drive started with the 23-year-old signal caller stiff-arming the 325-pound DaQuan Jones and somehow, while falling to the ground, rifling a 12-yard completion to Diggs. There aren't but a half-dozen guys in the league who can make that play. You have one of them.
Two downs later, Maye was at it again. The Bills played cover two, and while there may have been an easier option, the Pats quarterback saw Kayshon Boutte working down the sideline and stuck a 17-yard throw in there before the safety could get over, and the cornerback could react.
"Yeah, I mean, that's a big man," Hunter Henry smiled. "We've got a ton of confidence in him. He's gonna make the right play, make the right read. What a play down the sideline to Boutte, that throw that he made. He made a ton of throws outside of pocket, inside the pocket that were special tonight.”
"Game on the line. I like that," said Boutte, proudly. "Drake did trust the hole shot. Great throw. Great catch. Way to stay in bounds, keep the clock running."
After a couple of runs, the Pats again put the ball in Maye's hands, calling for a play-action pass on third down. In the past, even as recently as week three or even in the first half Sunday night, he wouldn't have made the right play. But as he continues to grow, and improve, and feel comfort in the Josh McDaniels' offense, Maye worked outside the pocket, realized he didn't see what he wanted, and instead of putting his own cape on, took a 1-yard sack, setting the table for rookie Andy Borregales to make the game-winning kick.
"I couldn't watch it," Maye recalled. "It was trust. Just trust in him."
Just like the coaching staff and teammates did with their budding young star, even after his rocky start.
"The game's not over in the first series," Mike Vrabel said. "I'm sure we'll want to start faster, but we finished really well and settled down."
Maye finished 22-of-30 for 273 yards and zero touchdowns but zero interceptions (Allen had a critical one in the red zone). Ten of those completions and 146 yards went to Diggs, who returned to Buffalo feeling nostalgic and then helped send the Bills Mafia home unhappy.
“They love you one day, they hate you the next," Diggs said of a crowd that used to eat out of his hand. "I spent a lot of time here. I respect the dynamic. Used to be here. I'm not here no more, but I guess I miss you, too.”
Diggs bounced through the players' tunnel on his way to the locker room, only to be greeted by Vrabel, who gave him a hearty embrace. The head coach then told him, "Let's get the (eff) out of here." Diggs gave a primal yell and disappeared behind a closed door that had the music turned all the way up. He grabbed his phone and started an Instagram live feed (a no-no that was quickly shut down), then remained fully dressed as the media entered. Teammates were encouraging him to get showered so they could do what Vrabel wanted (GTFOH). But though he tried to downplay the ending here - an ending that he pushed for - it was clear this meant more than any of the words he said into a microphone leading up to this return, or even after.
"I don't let things shake me," he said. "I don't let people's opinions about me, what people say about me, how people feel about me, I just look at it like people who think about me, why you think about me anyway?"
Diggs mentioned that the Pats' team bus came a different way to the stadium than he was used to. About two miles from Highmark, as you creep through the neighborhoods filled with “Park Here” signs and hundreds of coolers filled with Labatt Blues, there is a beautifully manicured cemetery with nary a blade of grass out of place. On the night of October 5th, it’s where the Bills' undefeated season went to die. But we - and the rest of the league - may remember it for when the Patriots announced that they are not only up-and-coming, but have arrived perhaps a year early, thanks, in large part, to a quarterback coming of age and his aging receiver who showed he's still got plenty to give.
