Patriots' Drake Maye Doesn't Have Secret Injury

While he is seen loosening his throwing shoulder in the huddle, the next play after the tackle was a 31-yard pass — Maye's most accurate of the day. This pass came on a flea flicker in one of the most crucial moments in the game and would have been an unlikely call if Maye's throwing shoulder was genuinely injured.

Dr. Chao uses the fact that Maye only throws the ball twice more in the game as further evidence of the injury; this only really makes sense if you decide to ignore the literal blizzard at that time in the game.

A number of plays later, when his shoulder pain would theoretically be greater than at the moment of injury, Maye uses that exact same arm to stiffarm a Broncos defender on his game-winning first down run. He then violently throws his right arm forward to celebrate the first down. These, from a medical perspective, are much more significant than the lack of passes in a snowstorm. It also makes it significantly less likely that Maye's wife touching his shoulder pads in the minutes after would have caused any sort of AC joint pain.

In my medical opinion, it's quite probable that Maye's shoulder might be a bit sore following the game. His shoulder is probably sore after a decent number of games in which he gets tackled while scrambling. This is an inconsequential occurrence.

Dr. Brain Lau, an orthopedic surgeon at Duke University Hospital, team physician for the Duke Blue Devils and nationally renowned expert in shoulder and knee injuries, shares a similar sentiment.

“Given that he was able to play for the remainder of the game at a high level - it’s unlikely that he had a serious injury. It’s normal to have aches and pains, which he may have, but I would anticipate he will be full go for the Super Bowl," Dr. Lau told Patriots on SI.

Simply stated, it's exceptionally unlikely that Maye is actually injured. His AC joint pathology (if there even is one past some inflammation) probably doesn't even come close to a Grade 1 sprain. Definitively claiming injury is sensational, not accurate — unfortunately, though, the former generates national media coverage and X/Twitter impressions.

Knowing the Patriots, it's possible that Maye's shoulder finds its way on the injury report regardless; this is often done in the NFL out of an abundance of caution and might even reflect the Belichick-like gamesmanship that New England fans are particularly familiar with. Even if it does, though, it'll be nothing more than a minor footnote in the context of the next two weeks.