Patriots OC Josh McDaniels says Drake Maye is like Tom Brady in this way

New England Patriots fans and other members of the NFL community predictably began comparing second-year quarterback Drake Maye to franchise legend Tom Brady long before Maye guided the Patriots to a Super Bowl LX showdown with the Seattle Seahawks.

While speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels acknowledged that he sees some similarities between the two players.

Drake Maye, Tom Brady have similar "passion for football"

"Just their passion for football," McDaniels said about how Maye is like Brady, per Mark Daniels of MassLive. "They really want to win. They want to do everything and anything they can to help the team. They’ll do anything that’s asked of them. They want to improve every week. There’s so many aspects of playing quarterback that are difficult. And it’s a never-ending process of how to improve and get better at it. Both of them work extremely hard. One of them certainly has a lot more pelts on the wall than the other one, but Drake works his butt off to do all those things right." 

Of course, Brady and McDaniels were key figures during the Patriots' dynastic run of the 2000s that involved the club winning six Super Bowl championships. Not long after McDaniels returned to the organization last offseason, he and first-year Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel asked Maye to study film of Brady's time in McDaniels' offense. 

Under McDaniels, Maye became a MVP finalist who is now a win away from getting his hands on the Vince Lombardi Trophy. 

"There’s no shortcuts to putting in the work," Maye recently said about advice he previously received from Brady. 

Drake Maye embraced the "little things" in second season

"Had a lot of physical gifts," McDaniels said about what he saw in Maye during Maye's rookie campaign. "That was easy to see. For Drake, it was about the little things. When you go from your first to second year, you usually make a lot of progress and understand the value of taking care of the football. Understand the value of protecting yourself as a runner. I think Drake has really embraced the formula that coach Vrabel has put in front of us and said, this is how we’re going to win."

As of Thursday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook continued to list the Patriots as 4.5-point underdogs against the Seahawks. Maye's ability to take care of the football against a menacing Seattle defense could ultimately end up deciding whether or not New England is able to pull off an upset win at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara.