Is the Drake Maye hype enough to keep Josh McDaniels with the Patriots for good?

"It would be surprising if move my kids out of Westwood, come hell or high water," McDaniels said. "I don't know if I'll be here or not, but it is what it is."

Josh McDaniels and Drake Maye AP Photo/Charles Krupa

October 9, 2025

3 minutes to read

FOXBOROUGH — Josh McDaniels blinked his eyes, leaned his head back, and mimed a miniature explosion with his hands as if his mind was blown by the question.

Would the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, who left on two separate occasions for head coaching gigs, mind sticking around to coach Drake Maye for the rest of his career? Or is he angling for a third bite at the head coaching apple?

“I love living in New England, that’s the short of it,” McDaniels said. “I just try to focus on now. Really enjoying coaching for Mike [Vrabel] and his staff and the guys we have here and this organization.”

“It would be surprising if move my kids out of Westwood, come hell or high water. I don’t know if I’ll be here or not, but it is what it is.”

The question came four days after Maye’s first signature win as a Patriot. New England upset league MVP Josh Allen and the reigning AFC East champion Bills on Sunday Night Football.

The hype behind Maye has never been higher during his professional career. He delivered in his first prime time performance, knocking off the last undefeated team in the league.

“I thought our group continuusly tried to work hard to handle whatever gets thrown their way,” McDaniels’ said, when asked about New England’s game-winning drive. “Coach Vrabel has done a good job of putting those positions in front of us in practice and it’s just one of those scenarios where you hope your group responds together to adversity, whether it’s home or on the road.

“You’ve going to need to do that over, and over, and over again in the National Football League. I think we’ve done that a few times this year. We’ve learned a lot of things.”

Whether it was buying time with his legs or stiff-arming a defensive lineman while launching a pass to Stefon Diggs, Maye leaned on his improvisational skills during the fourth quarter.

Some, as hall-of-fame quarterback Kurt Warner did on the Rich Eisen Show, would argue that those kinds of plays were more “backyard football” than solid, consistent quarterback play.

The numbers, so far, would beg to differ, as Maye has completed 73.9 percent of his passes and thrown 7 touchdowns against two interceptions. However, there’s always the possibility that the risks Maye took could have played out differently had he been slightly less lucky.

McDaniels was asked about Warner’s comments at the podium on Thursday.

“Players make plays. Sometimes the design of the offense either isn’t good enough on a certain play and a certain layer makes it and extends the play, or the defense does something to stop us from doing what we would like to do initially and a player makes a play.”

“I think that happens a lot in football, it just happens more when it’s the quarterback. There’s times when there’s a stunt in pass protection and we block it but we don’t block it the way we would have drawn it up in practice, necessarily … I think when the quarterbacks do it at the right time, it’s very helpful. It doesn’t always result in a positive play, but hopefully what it does is it ends in a play that doesn’t hurt us and gives us and opportunity to extend the drive.”

McDaniels is 20-33 as a head coach between his stops in Denver and Las Vegas. He’s a six-time Super Bowl champion as a Patriots offensive coordinator. He has a young, athletic, ascending quarterback to work with.

So far, it seems like its too early to tell how long his third stint in New England will be.