Did Drake Maye Cause AJ Brown’s Injury? Patriots Fans Blamed Him After Seahawks Loss
The New England Patriots opened the 2026 season Wednesday night at Lumen Field, blew a 10-0 lead, lost 13-10 to the defending champion Seahawks, and lost their best offensive player in the process. AJ Brown went down in the third quarter with a right ankle injury and left the stadium in a walking boot. And within about four minutes of the play, the entire internet had decided who was responsible.
Drake Maye.
Here is what happened. Third-and-4 in the third quarter. Maye tried to hit Brown on a quick slant. The ball came out low and behind, Brown had to drop to the turf to reach for it, and Seahawks cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett rolled up on his ankle while Brown was down there. Incomplete pass. Star receiver on the ground grabbing his lower leg.
Maye owned it after the game, saying he threw one low to him. He did not have to say much more than that, because social media had already filled in the rest. The jokes were relentless. Fans called the throw a ham sandwich, a grilled cheese with turf sauce, anything to describe a pass that arrived nowhere near where it needed to be.
Is the blame fair? Partly. Receivers get hurt on well-thrown balls all the time, and Pritchett falling on Brown’s ankle is bad luck more than anything else. But the throw did put Brown in a vulnerable spot. A ball on the numbers means Brown catches it upright and takes a normal hit. A ball at his shoelaces means he is a stationary target lying on the ground with 200 pounds of cornerback arriving.
The frustrating part for New England is that this was not an isolated bad rep. Maye underthrew Brown on a would-be deep touchdown in the second quarter too. Brown drew a pass interference flag and the Patriots eventually scored, so nobody complained at the time. But the timing on the league’s newest star quarterback-receiver pairing was clearly off all night.
New England traded for Brown this offseason to give Maye a true No. 1 target. Brown is a three-time All-Pro. The whole point of the acquisition was to stop asking Maye to manufacture offense out of nothing. One half of football later, that plan is on hold.
The rest of Maye’s night did not help his case either. He finished 23-for-33 for 178 yards with one touchdown, three interceptions and 47 rushing yards. All three picks came on the Patriots’ final three possessions, and all three came on throws of 20-plus air yards. For context, Maye threw exactly one interception on deep attempts all of last season. He tripled that number in about 20 minutes of game time.
The killer came with 26 seconds left. Third-and-5 from the Seattle 16, game on the line, and Maye forced a ball into the end zone that Josh Jobe picked off. Maye called that throw unacceptable. He is right.
To his credit, he did not hide behind the Brown injury or behind an offensive line that got worse as the game wore on. He blamed his own impatience and said his mistakes cost New England the game. That is the correct read. Seattle scored 13 unanswered points, and the Patriots gift-wrapped most of the opportunities.
Maye finished second in MVP voting in 2025. That is exactly why Wednesday stung. This is supposed to be the year New England stops being a fun young team and starts being a real one, and the opener looked like a step backward on both counts.
Now the Patriots wait on the Brown ankle news. If it is a multi-week absence, an offense that just scored 10 points against a great defense gets significantly thinner. Maye will get the benefit of the doubt in the long run, because 23 games of good tape does not vanish in one night. But he owes his receiver a better ball next time.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
