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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — With 11 seconds remaining in the first quarter Sunday, Drake Maye ditched the initial play call and alerted to a second read.

The New England Patriots quarterback faked a handoff to running back TreVeyon Henderson then dropped back, unspooling a deep pass down the right sideline as Tampa Bay Buccaneers outside linebacker Yaya Diaby slammed Maye to the ground.

Maye couldn’t see the ball’s destination in real time as he lay on the turf. But he figured that if the ball reached receiver Kyle Williams, Williams would be well-positioned to take it home.

And home did the rookie take Maye’s pass, canvassing 72 yards for a touchdown.

The chants began again.

MVP. MVP. MVP. MVP.

The Patriots were 1,300 miles from their home stadium, and Maye was struggling through rain and Todd Bowles' blitzes. But Maye had shown enough electricity this season to elicit MVP chants even in the stadium of another quarterback who’d received his own MVP hype earlier this year. The chants weren’t limited to that one moment.

After Maye hit veteran receiver Mack Hollins for a 54-yard gain on third-and-14 with 7:27 to play in the fourth quarter, a section of the stands erupted again.

MVP. MVP. MVP. MVP.

Maye’s worst completion percentage of the season didn’t deter them, the 28-23 victory over another division leader enough also to convince Vegas the chants aren’t hyperbolic. Ten weeks into the season, Maye’s +300 odds for the award trail only those of the Los Angeles Rams’ Matthew Stafford at +275, per BetMGM. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor follow at +500, before Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen at +700.

[Get more Patriots news: New England team feed]

And yet, there’s an irony to the ever-intensifying tenor of MVP chants circling a quarterback whose top goal is not the description of “most valuable player,” at least in the presence of his teammates.

Ball out for his team, by air and by ground? Yes, Maye aspires to that. Win, win and win again? Absolutely — whether on the field or in the players lounge, Maye detests losing.

But when it comes to separating himself from his teammates, Maye’s aspirations stop. Even as the Patriots win because of him, he wants to make clear they’re winning because of all of them. He doesn’t feel comfortable embracing these allegations of “most valuable” now any more than he did when North Carolina sought to hang his name in the rafters after he won ACC Player of the Year honors for the 2022 season.

Maye asked UNC not to hang his name while he was still playing there.

“Just felt some type of way with my teammates there still playing with me and me getting recognition for that,” he told Yahoo Sports last week. “Just felt like if it was something they wanted to do, wait until after I’m done playing there. And just know that the teammates around me played just as big a part as I did from making plays.”

He feels similarly in New England.

“Just playing quarterback, trying to be my authentic self and know that’s more important than whatever noise is from the outside,” Maye said. “Just trying to stay humble and know that a lot of people in this organization and teammates are playing better than I am and making plays for me.”

Maye may repeat this and believe this, but that won’t stop coaches and executives around the league from marveling at what Maye — and Maye most of all — has done.

Sure, the Patriots have upgraded the roster from the 2024 third overall draft pick’s rookie year to his second act. Head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels form a formidable one-two punch, permitting Maye more trust than the NFL usually permits its 23-year-olds.

But still, it’s Maye who has thrown for the third-most passing yards (2,555) and touchdowns (19, tied with Justin Herbert) through 10 weeks. It’s Maye whose 71.7% completion rate through 10 weeks ranks second only to the Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff, and Maye whose +8.7% completion percentage over expectation ranks second only to the Seattle Seahawks’ Sam Darnold.

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Maye is under pressure as a passer, at the fifth-highest rate in the league. But his drastic improvement — from 25th in passing EPA a year ago to first through 10 weeks now — belies it.

Fourteen months after his NFL debut in garbage time of a Thursday Night Football game against the New York Jets, Maye will once again face the Jets this week on Thursday night.

He’s developed dramatically as a professional since that 4-of-8 for 22 yards performance, his 56.2 passer rating in his debut in a different stratosphere than his current 114.8.

None of this growth will change Maye’s belief about his relative import to his team or his desire for that to be recognized.

“That’s just Drake,” Maye’s UNC coach Mack Brown told Yahoo Sports. “He doesn’t realize he’s a superstar.”

Patriots on Maye: ‘We can write the story. But he publishes the book’

Maye took the same initial approach to his redshirt season at UNC as he would to start his NFL rookie year.

Questions at each place weren’t about whether he would eventually win the job. But his demeanor before each team handed him the keys surprised colleagues. Maye was comfortable deferring first to his fellow quarterbacks when Sam Howell started over Maye at UNC in 2021 and Jacoby Brissett preceded Maye in New England last year.

“He didn’t voice displeasure about it,” a 2024 Patriots colleague told Yahoo Sports. “I’m sure he was unhappy he wasn’t playing, but he never made it about him.”

Brown described similar humility at UNC. He once asked Maye why he wasn’t leading the team.

“And he said, ‘Coach, I’m not starting,’” Brown said. “‘When you get to be the starter is when you get to take over and lead.’”

In New England, Maye now embraces leading. He’s not simply calling out plays and changing plays in the huddle during games though McDaniels’ system gives him the freedom to tap into both of those skills as well as to manage his protections and slides. Maye is also detailed with his receivers in practice to ensure they don’t wait until game day to sync.

“In practice when things are happening and he might see things a certain kind of way and he'll just be like, ‘Hey, right here, come flat’ or ‘right here, go high,’” Stefon Diggs told Yahoo Sports. “It just depends on what he's seeing out there from a quarterback standpoint. So for me, that open line of communication, more so quarterback to receiver, I'm more receiving a lot of the information on what makes him feel comfortable to throw me the ball.”

Moments like that build the trust that translated into the 146-yard connection between Maye and Diggs against the Buffalo Bills in a 23-20 prime-time win Oct. 6 and it translated to a fourth-down touchdown entering halftime Sunday in a win over the Buccaneers. Honesty about the Patriots’ strength of schedule during an 8-2 start is warranted. But so too is honesty about the Patriots’ performances in games against their two most successful foes thus far: both wins.

Maye can’t always see where the ball’s going as the pocket closes in, as it has to the tune of pressure on more than 40% of his throws each of the Patriots’ last three games, per Next Gen Stats. He’s nonetheless regularly staying tall in the pocket and unafraid to throw — aggressive but not reckless, Vrabel says on repeat — in large part because of the trust he’s developed with a rotating cast of targets.

Requesting and communicating adjustments from receivers at practice is a habit he’s employed since high school, Maye says.

“He will come and just say, ‘Hey, could you try this or that?’” Hollins told Yahoo Sports. “‘Hey, if you could run it a little bit like this or maybe slow it down or speed it up or get to this depth or do this at the top so I know that you're going to be doing something … ’

“At the end of the day, we can write the story. But he publishes the book.”

Eddie Haskell or man on a mission? Drake Maye is both

At moments in the Patriots' locker room, an intense Maye wants no interruptions to his routine. He wants to lift as soon as he’s done with a Wednesday media session and he doesn’t want Vrabel to cut 25 minutes from meeting time even if the team is playing Thursday Night Football and thus balancing a quick turnaround.

No shortcuts or dismissal of the details, Maye says, as the Patriots enter this week tied with the Colts and Denver Broncos for the best record in football. Meeting time matters to ensure the presnap clarity that has impressed opposing defensive coaches as Maye translates those diagnoses to post-snap success. Reps matter to maintain his accuracy, opponents particularly impressed with how well Maye throws to the outside of the field, including fades against man coverage.

Interruptions are often not welcome.

Such intensity can seem incongruous with the “magnetic personality” that left an AFC talent evaluator who met with Maye in the predraft process seeing the quarterback as “Eddie Haskellish.”

“I think it was genuine, and that's genuinely who he is, but it was so much that it was maybe too much,” the evaluator told Yahoo Sports. “But I think that’s who he is. He does a really good job of connecting with people.”

Maye finds ways to merge his intensity with his magnetism. His Ping-Pong games at North Carolina once got so intense that Brown entered the room to find a broken paddle. He asked his players who broke the paddle. They laughed.

“The tight end beat me,” Maye said in explanation. “I couldn’t help it.”

He’s similarly competitive with Patriots tight end Hunter Henry, Maye’s chief Ping-Pong challenger in the players lounge. Nerf basketball games are confined to the offseason because they “get too serious during season,” Maye says. Ping-Pong with Henry has been deemed safe enough to play year-round.

“We play to 21 and we’ve probably been to the 30s of just going back and forth on game points,” Maye told Yahoo Sports. “Any time we're keeping score, I’m trying to win.

“I don’t like losing.”

On the field with the Patriots this season, Maye hasn’t lost much. His eight wins in 10 tries already double the Patriots’ 2024 win column and more than double Maye’s 3-9 record as a starter last year.

The Patriots are a full 13-point favorites for Thursday night, with a chance to become the NFL’s first nine-win team this year.

Maye will have his eye on that, and on a performance that includes the play he’s most proud of so far this season, according to his response when asked this week. Eye rolls would have been reasonable when Maye answered the question. But his answer nonetheless captured accurately the mindset of an MVP candidate uninterested in honestly examining his candidacy.

The play he’s most proud of, in Maye’s own words?

“Just getting in victory formation, that’s kind of the biggest thing,” he said. “That’s what I’m proud of probably the most, is being in the game with the ball in our hands and kneeing it out.

“Probably some plays I made in there, some throws or something. But as a whole, just working hard to win in this league.”

With more wins will come more MVP chants. But don’t tell that to Maye.