Giardi: Maye's status front and center; plus a word on road warriors and an uptick in play from Gonzalez

FOXBOROUGH - If you were hoping that I would bring you some breathless report about how Drake Maye (right shoulder) threw the ball in practice today, sorry. No can do. In the brief window the media was allowed to watch the Patriots as they returned to the field for the first time this week, neither Maye, Joshua Dobbs, nor Tommy DeVito let it rip. Coincidence? Perhaps. But there remains a consistent message, both publicly and behind the scenes, suggesting they are not worried (at least not yet).

"I feel good. I'm just going to try to do whatever I can to get back to 100%. I think a lot of people in that locker room would say the same thing," Maye said after practice (in which he told us, he did eventually throw). 

Does he think the injury will impact his ability to throw in the Super Bowl?

"I don't think so," he added. "That's why you have your trainers. I think it's just been one of those things where it's a long season, and sometimes things show up, and (I'll) do whatever I can to feel 100% and I'm sure if its not there, get as close as you can 99% or do whatever I can to make sure I'm throwing, and do whatever I can to help team win."

“Not much,” Mike Vrabel said when asked about his level of concern about Maye’s shoulder. “I try not to have a whole lot of concern. I just want to prepare the football team and make sure that we’re ready and that we have a plan. I don’t want to surprise anybody.”

We’ll get a full participation report later in the day/evening (**UPDATE - Maye was once again a limited participant**), but the team listed Maye as limited on Wednesday, even though they didn’t actually do anything. That’s just the league being transparent (I nearly spit up typing that) with its most important fans (i.e., the gambling community). So there’s no shrugging this off as a nothingburger, but with a week-and-a-half between now and Super Bowl Sunday, there’s plenty of time for the 23-year-old to heal up. 

I asked a team source whether the injury, aggravated when Talanoa Hufanga hit Maye on a third-quarter scramble, affected how they played offense going forward. The answer was no.

ROAD WARRIORS

The Patriots are a remarkable 9-0 on the road this season. And even though they’re the home team for the Super Bowl, they have decided to wear their white-on-white uniform combo in part as an ode to that success.

By now, you’ve probably seen the video of Mack Hollins entering the locker room in Denver with three bottles on his hand (and if you haven’t, here you go). 

While peculiar behavior - Hollins is definitely his own dude - the veteran wide receiver was just seizing on a scene from the movie “The Warriors.” There wasn’t a player on the roster even born when that film was released back in 1979, but for some reason, it's become part of this Patriots’ identity. 

“When we started this thing in Miami, I ran out of WWF (wrestling) clips to show them about the ‘Road Warriors,” Vrabel said. “So the next thing I could think of was that movie clip, and that's what we went with. And it's amazing what sticks. I didn't think at the time that it would have stuck, but here we are, at the end of January, and it's still sticking.”

“I think this season, it’s like a storybook,” Stefon Diggs added. “Everybody had their own experiences throughout their life, and they kind of  inserted them in this team, like the road warrior concept. Going on a road, going into a hostile environment, is just like something we kind of got conditioned to doing. And kind of think it started around like Miami, when you put out a win, the miraculous win out of nowhere, and things could have went either way, and kind of got a ball rolling from there. 

“No sob story. We’re all going to band together. We're gonna figure out a way to win. That’s why I think the road warrior mindset kind of translated so well.”

Vrabel has often told the players to pack their identity and bring it with ‘em. Now, that apparently includes bottles...

A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

For portions of this season, we’ve been wondering if Christian Gonzalez was someone the Patriots would just automatically re-up the moment they get that opportunity this offseason. There was no doubting the talent, and what the player is capable of at his APEX, but we hadn’t seen that consistently. Part of that is the style of defense the Pats are playing under Vrabel. They aren’t fully committed to being a man-first team, and that is where Gonzalez has proven to be at his best.

But the third-year cornerback has been in the middle of just about everything good that’s happening with the defense on the back end near the end of the season and certainly through the playoffs, and that’s not something that’s been lost on his head coach. 

Vrabel mentioned a “change” in Gonzalez starting in Baltimore and asked to elaborate on that again on Thursday.

“It's just there's just a presence,” he said. “I feel like just - and again, not that there was anything wrong. I just felt him. I just felt when he blitzed, when he covered, when he -  maybe it was just me, but I got a pretty good seat for some of these games, and so I just felt him start to continue to impact at a greater level. You heard him, you saw him, and obviously, his play. So, it's no secret that we'll need him to play well, as well as the rest of our other good players.”

“I feel like I can’t pinpoint a change or anything,” Gonzalez said. “I feel like I've been approaching and preparing for each game the same. But I know what he's talking about. After the Baltimore game, he told me he felt he had seen something different. But I mean, I've been preparing and doing what I've been doing, and I want to continue to make the plays that I need to make when my number's called, and do what I got to do for this team to win.”

Gonzalez has his first interception of the season late in the 4th quarter of the AFC Championship game. That was the last time the Broncos got their hands on the football. He also had a half-dozen tackles and was credited with a sack (even though Jarrett Stidham ran out of bounds). The week before, he forced a critical fumble in the red area during the win over the Texans. In the Wild Card round against the Chargers, he pitched a shutout on 3 targets and had a pair of pass breakups. He'll need to bring that same kind of energy to the Super Bowl, especially if he draws Jaxson Smith-Njigba.