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What does Drake ‘Drake Maye’ Maye mean? Even Mike Vrabel and Kayshon Boutte aren’t sure.
"I couldn’t even figure out 6-7, and now it’s Drake ‘Drake Maye’ Maye" Vrabel said of the trend.
Having a nickname cited in quotation marks is nothing new, especially in sports.
There’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in wrestling. There’s “Broadway Joe” Namath, “Mean Joe” Greene, and “Prime Time” Deion Sanders in pro football, to name a few.
However, Patriots quarterback Drake Maye has recently been a part of a new twist on the phenomenon. He only has one nickname listed on his Pro Football Reference page, and it’s his own first and last name.
There’s no Tom Terrific or TB12-style nickname for the second-year quarterback yet. He’s Drake “Drake Maye” Maye.
Patriots left tackle Will Campbell appeared to get a kick out of it when he poked his head into one of Maye’s press conferences last month. He came just to say the nickname in front of the TV cameras before walking back into the locker room.
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“Get out of here rookie,” a smiling Maye said. “Um, sorry about that.”
What does the nickname mean? Even Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel isn’t quite sure.
“I just heard about it ten seconds ago,” Vrabel said last month on WEEI. “I couldn’t even figure out 6-7, and now it’s Drake ‘Drake Maye’ Maye-Maye, I don’t know.”
Kayshon Boutte also seemed perplexed by the nickname in a video clip that the Patriots posted to their X account.
“Hey does anybody know what that means when when they be like Drake ‘Drake Maye’ Maye?” Boutte asked his teammates on the sideline during Monday night’s win against the Giants. “Like, what the hell does that mean? They’re giving him a middle name I guess.”
A user on X, @drakemayeloverr, tagged Boutte in a post offering to explain the nickname “anytime.” The @drakemayeloverr account has around 45,000 followers and routinely posts a variety of content about Maye ranging from memes and videos to simply tweeting his name.
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Maye was asked about the account during a recent interview on ESPN’s NFL Countdown.
“Yeah, my wife and a bunch of my friends always laugh about it,” Maye said. “I wonder who it is.”
The user behind the Drake Maye Lover account sat down with Sports Illustrated for an interview back in October. SI quoted him anonymously, saying that he “chose not to reveal his name to keep up appearances.”
The 22-year-old Patriots fan did not explain what the nickname means in the interview, but said he is glad that Maye is getting attention on social media.
“I wouldn’t say I had really any part in that,” the X user said. “Drake Maye’s play speaks entirely for itself. If you’ve watched him at all the past couple years, you’d know he’s always played like this. I’m just glad the rest of the league is finally starting to notice as well.”
Could the joke be that Maye is so good at football that his actual name can stand in for a nickname? Perhaps. Maybe it was the lack of a catchy nickname for the young MVP candidate that inspired someone to throw some ideas against the wall and see what stuck.
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Either way, the nickname has found its way into the Patriots’ locker room and all over social media.
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