Patriots Icon Asante Samuel Rips Cam Newton for Criticism of Drake Maye's NFL MVP Hype

Former New England Patriots star Asante Samuel had some words for Cam Newton about his take on Drake Maye not yet being among the very top-tier of quarterbacks in the NFL.

On the latest episode of his podcast, Newton argued that Maye doesn't yet belong in the conversation with the best players at his position because he has only had "one season of dynamic play" after virtually the entire Patriots coaching staff was changed following the 2024 season.

This prompted several responses on X from Samuel, including one in which he called Newton "just a big guy that can run the ball."

One thing that can be said about Newton's argument against Maye is it doesn't make sense. He is punishing the Patriots quarterback because they had a head coach and offensive coordinator during his rookie season who were so ineffective at their jobs that the organization fired them to bring in people who have been better.

It seems Newton's suggestion there is that Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels are just as responsible for the offensive success in New England as Maye this season. Crediting the coaches for a team's performance isn't unfair, but history has shown that every quarterback is dependent on the situation around them.

There were multiple articles written for national outlets throughout this season about the broken offense for the Kansas City Chiefs that had Patrick Mahomes at quarterback before he suffered a torn ACL in Week 15.

Trevor Lawrence is receiving plaudits this season for finally looking like the quarterback everyone expected him to be coming out of Clemson in 2021 because the Jacksonville Jaguars hired a savvy head coach and built an effective offensive ecosystem around him.

Matthew Stafford, Maye's primary competition in the MVP race, is on a Los Angeles Rams team with arguably the NFL's best offensive play-calling head coach (Sean McVay), best wide receiver (Puka Nacua) and another Hall-of-Fame receiver still playing at a high level as a 33-year-old (Davante Adams).

The best playmakers on the Patriots are Stefon Diggs, TreVeyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson.

Newton played for the Patriots with McDaniels as his offensive coordinator in 2020. The pairing didn't do much with Newton throwing for 2,657 yards, eight touchdowns and 12 interceptions. He did run for 592 yards and 12 touchdowns, but New England finished 7-9 with the sixth-worst offense in the NFL by points per game.

Quarterback rankings are a wholly subjective exercise, but the idea that Maye can't be considered more than a game manager yet because of what happened in 2024 is an unusual argument.