A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Moronic hyperbole, for sure. Only a dope truly believed that Brady and the 2001 Patriots were bound for the franchise\u2019s first Super Bowl victory.<\/span><\/p>\n Here we are almost a quarter of a century later, and the Patriots are sending 23-year-old Drake Maye \u2014 two years out of college \u2014 out to face the Chargers on \u201cSunday Night Football\u201d at Gillette Stadium. It\u2019ll be the first playoff game of Maye\u2019s young career and it\u2019s hard to know what to expect from a kid who might end up being MVP of the NFL for 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think the biggest thing is I\u2019m excited,\u201d Maye said Wednesday. \u201cExcited to get an opportunity to play home playoff games. That\u2019s what we starred at the beginning of the season of things we want to do here and goals we want to accomplish, and we\u2019ve got our chance and opportunity right here. So take advantage of playing in front of a crowd that\u2019s been great all year, a crowd that I expect to be loud \u2026 we\u2019ve got our hands full, but I\u2019m looking forward to playing in front of this crowd.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Maye has been an almost perfect quarterback this season<\/a>, completing 72 percent of his passes for 4,394 yards and 31 touchdowns with only eight interceptions, while rushing for an additional 450 yards and four TDs. Compare that with Brady in his second year, completing 64 percent of his passes for 2,843 yards with 18 TDs and 12 picks. Maye went 14-3, compared with Brady\u2019s 11-3 as a starter.<\/span><\/p>\n Maye had a Brady-esque comeback game<\/a> on national television just before Christmas in Baltimore, when he led the Patriots back from a 24-13, fourth-quarter deficit with two TD drives in which he completed 12 of 14 passes for 139 yards.<\/span><\/p>\n Patriots coach Mike Vrabel knows what he\u2019s got in Maye<\/a>. A linebacker by trade, Vrabel played eight seasons with Brady, winning three Super Bowls and catching 10 Brady passes for touchdowns, two of them in Super Bowls. Vrabel is too smart to get sucked into any conversation in which Brady and Maye are compared.<\/span><\/p>\n Careful not to go too far in praising Maye, the coach will only say, \u201cThere\u2019s nobody else we would want as our quarterback.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Patriots fans feel the same way. But we still haven\u2019t seen Maye in the playoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n As good as Brady was in relief of Drew Bledsoe in 2001, we didn\u2019t know what we had until the playoffs got going. And even then, Brady was shaky at the start, completing only 6 of 13 passes with no TDs and an interception in the first half of his postseason debut against the Raiders.<\/span><\/p>\n Everything changed when the snow came down hard in the second half, and Brady responded, completing 26 of 39 for 238 yards and getting one big assist from an official named Walt Coleman. You know the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n Now it\u2019s Drake Maye\u2019s turn. Starting Sunday night at Gillette.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Quiz: 1. Name the four leaders in career NFL playoff games; 2. Name four Patriots who have finished among the NFL\u2019s top five in receptions for a season since 2000 (answers below).<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Wouldn\u2019t you want to talk about your baseball team if you owned the Boston Red Sox?<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Ponder this: Every NFL playoff game this weekend is being played outdoors. With the Super Bowl set for Levi\u2019s Stadium, this could be the last time every NFL tournament game is played in the great outdoors, where God intended. Enjoy.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 John Harbaugh<\/a> to the New York Football Giants?<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall died in Alberta on Wednesday at the age of 94. Hall was a Stanley Cup champ with the 1960-61 Black Hawks and a seven-time first-team NHL All Star with 407 career wins. He also is a legend in New England. Hall was minding the net for the St. Louis Blues when You Know Who took a pass from Derek Sanderson, potted the puck with an overtime winner, then sailed across the Garden Ice and into history on Mother\u2019s Day, 1970.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Somebody please tell Jaylen Brown to chill. The man is having an epic season<\/a>. He\u2019s at the height of his considerable NBA powers, one of the best players in the league. Still only 29, he\u2019s in his 10th season and he\u2019s proved to everybody that he can be the Alpha Dog on any team, with or without Jayson Tatum. Brown already has been an NBA champ, a Finals MVP, and his mega-contract ($285.35 million over five years) was tops in the sport at the time he signed it. So why does he still care about a silly little thing such as Player of the Month or where he slots on fans\u2019 All-Star voting? It\u2019s great for Brown to take motivation from perceived slights \u2014 that makes him better and helps the Celtics. But does he need to be so public about it? He goes on social media and proclaims himself the \u201cbest 2-way player in the game.\u201d He complains about the All-Star voting selection when he\u2019s not recognized as one of the top five players in the Eastern Conference. It\u2019s not necessary, JB. You\u2019re doing a fine job letting your game speak for itself. When you do it yourself, it comes across as needy and sour grapes. The good news for Brown is that he\u2019s probably going to finish no lower than second in the MVP race because he and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander look like the only two stars on course to reach the 65-game minimum required to win MVP.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Speaking of the Celtics, their 50-1 home record from 1985-86 (includes three \u201chome\u201d games in Hartford, plus playoffs) is secure for another season. The Thunder started 17-1 at home but were thrashed by the Hornets last Monday, falling to 17-2.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 USA Today this past week had the Celtics ranked fourth overall in the NBA, trailing only the Thunder, Pistons, and Spurs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 After years of negotiations to repair a torn relationship with their sole superstar, the Timberwolves will finally get to hang Kevin Garnett\u2019s No. 21 from the rafters sometime soon. Hard to believe that Garnett\u2019s Celtics No. 5 already is in the rafters<\/a> on Causeway Street, but Timberwolves fans are still waiting. Former coach Flip Saunders and Malik Sealy are the only Timberwolves thus far honored. \u201cIn many ways, he\u2019s our Babe Ruth,\u201d noted Alex Rodriguez, one of the Timberwolves\u2019 controlling owners.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 A-Rod makes for an easy punching bag whenever we want to make fun of the Timberwolves. So why not Brady and the Raiders? Brady seems a little too comfortable being half-in on everything: broadcasting, crypto, salesman for everything, NFL owner. How about it, Tom? Are you perhaps partially to blame for the abomination of the 2025 Raiders? They need a new coach. Isn\u2019t it time for Brady to be something more than ceremonial at something? Get involved, Tom. Make The Raiders Great Again. Brady\u2019s \u201cownership\u201d stake in the Raiders reminds me a little of Theo Epstein\u2019s part-time partnership with Fenway Sports Group. He doesn\u2019t want his name associated with the Red Sox until they become good and popular again.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 When the Knicks lost six of 11 games after winning the coveted NBA Cup, the vaunted New York Post headlined a story, \u201cKnicks deny they\u2019re amid post-NBA Cup hangover.\u201d Yikes. Who even knew there was such a thing? Good thing the Celtics didn\u2019t win the contrived Cup. Wouldn\u2019t want them suffering from \u201cpost-NBA Cup hangover.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Friday\u2019s Peach Bowl kicked off with both Indiana and Oregon vying to become only the eighth school to win both official NCAA football and basketball championships, and it will be the Hoosiers taking their best shot in the Jan. 19 CFP final at Miami Gardens after a 56-22 elimination of the Ducks. The seven schools that can make that claim are Ohio State, Florida, Michigan, Michigan State, Maryland, Syracuse (won both polls in 1959), and UCLA. The Bruins won a split NCAA football title with Ohio State in 1954.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Speaking of Ohio State, the Buckeyes spent $35 million on player payroll to not win the national championship this season.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Quarterback Sam Darnold<\/a> produced 14 wins for Seahawks this season, but for a lot of Patriots fans he\u2019ll always be the shaky Jets quarterback who spoke of \u201cseeing ghosts out there\u201d in a \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d loss to the Patriots way back in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 We all respect Josh Allen and he\u2019s still the most dangerous quarterback in these playoffs, but the Bills QB does himself no favors with the phony preservation of his 127 \u201cconsecutive games started\u201d streak. Two years in a row Allen has taken the field for a ceremonial first snap, then gone to the bench in a meaningless regular-season finale. Weak sauce from Buffalo. Cal Ripken Jr., he is not.<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Something tells me Steve Grogan would not be amused to hear Ben Affleck on \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live\u201d this past week. The Cambridge actor said New England\u2019s football futility was a boon for Affleck\u2019s family fortunes<\/a> in days when his father was a small-time bookie. \u201cI remember our first washing machine and our first VCR,\u201d Affleck told Kimmel. \u201cDad coming home like, \u2018You can thank Steve Grogan for this. Everybody keeps betting the Patriots to beat the spread.\u2019 And so I was really grateful that the Patriots were terrible, to thank Steve Grogan\u2019s knees for our VCR.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Who knew that Al Davis and Chuck Noll were both assistants under original Chargers head coach Sid Gillman?<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Manchester United\u2019s Ruben Amorim was \u201csacked\u201d this past week after only 14 months on the job. It\u2019s never \u201cfired\u201d in the Beautiful Game. Always \u201csacked.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u22c5 Quiz answers: 1. Brady (48), Adam Vinatieri (32), Stephen Gostkowski (29), Jerry Rice (29); 2. Troy Brown (2001), Rob Gronkowski (2011), Wes Welker (2007, \u201908, \u201909, \u201911, \u201912), Julian Edelman (2013, \u201916, \u201919).<\/span><\/p>\n Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com<\/a>. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js<\/a><\/p>\n var oneTrustActive = true; try { \/\/ Default to granted consent \/\/ FB script decleration if (oneTrustActive && oneTrustConsentObj && oneTrustConsentObj.C0004 === false) { \/\/ We need to call consent before we run init and track Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Moronic hyperbole, for sure. Only a dope truly believed that Brady and the 2001 Patriots were bound for the franchise\u2019s first Super Bowl victory. Here we are almost a quarter of a century later, and the Patriots are … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Will-second-year-QB-Drake-Maye-do-for-the-Patriots-what.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16480,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478\/revisions\/16480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Is](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3EYXPE6SOJTIVZUARHUNPXR4QQ.jpg\")
![\"Sam](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BMYFYUHUPYI6TPIZYY2FNDBQRU.jpg\")
![\"Ruben](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/HGQQ5Q4VACNIZBNB52PQDIV2XU.jpg\")
\n
\nvar oneTrustConsentObj;<\/p>\n
\n oneTrustConsentObj = JSON.parse(window.localStorage.getItem(‘consent_one_trust_bgmp’) || ‘{}’);
\n} catch (err) {
\n oneTrustConsentObj = {};
\n}<\/p>\n
\nvar consent=”grant”<\/p>\n
\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {
\n if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
\n if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
\n n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
\n t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
\n s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s);
\n}
\n(window,document,’script’, ‘https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js’);<\/p>\n
\n consent=”revoke”;
\n}<\/p>\n
\nfbq(‘consent’, consent);
\nfbq(‘set’, ‘autoConfig’, ‘false’, ‘884869448226452’);
\nfbq(‘set’, ‘autoConfig’, ‘false’, ‘493062270895851’);
\nfbq(‘init’, ‘884869448226452’);
\nfbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);<\/p>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"