Drake Maye took the Patrick Mahomes approach early in his career and implores young players to do the same

As things currently stand, there’s a stunning name at the top of NFL MVP odds in several sportsbooks. New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye made yet another case to be a top MVP contender with a good performance against the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football. At 23 years old, Maye is on the verge of superstardom. But if he wants to win MVP, he will have to hold off two veterans in Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes.

Stafford is currently in front of Mahomes in terms of odds, but there’s a bit of recency bias going on, as Mahomes is coming off of a bye week. A big game against the Denver Broncos could shoot Mahomes right to the very top, but there’s no denying that Maye is making a second-year leap that Mahomes himself experienced too.

Maye has a long way to go before matching Mahomes’ 52-touchdown second season in the NFL. While there isn’t exactly a parallel to Mahomes since the Kansas City Chiefs QB sat behind Alex Smith for a year, while Maye played from the get-go as a rookie, there’s something in common the two share that begs the question for other quarterbacks.

Both Drake Maye and Patrick Mahomes excelled as multi-sport athletes

After Fox Sports analyst Greg Olsen resurfaced a picture of Maye playing basketball in high school, NFL reporter Jeff Darlington revealed a quote that Maye told him last week about younger football players. In the eyes of the quarterback, playing both baseball and basketball helped him tremendously in becoming the football player he is now.

Plenty of other quarterbacks were two-sport athletes in their earlier days, which goes to show how imperative it is to success at every level. Like Maye, Mahomes also played baseball and basketball while in high school. His father, Pat Mahomes Sr., played in Major League Baseball in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Patrick was a fine pitcher in his earlier days, just like his father, which actually forced him to make a decision between baseball or football. It’s safe to say that he chose the right path, as did Maye.