Speculation growing about Drake Maye’s throwing shoulder

Drake Maye's health entering Super Bowl LX has entered the "something to monitor" phase.

Most of the injury chatter around Maye in the wake of the Patriots' AFC Championship win over the Denver Broncos is pure speculation. It's likely we have to wait until the Patriots' next official injury report to find out whether it's even something worthy of reporting in the first place. But if you need someone to blame for the rise in injury speculation around Maye's throwing shoulder, it's Dr. David Chao. He recently said in a new video: "There's no question in my mind that Drake Maye injured his right throwing shoulder against the Denver Broncos."

Taking off for a scramble between the tackles, Maye didn't properly slide in time and instead crumbled forward as he went down with a defender on him, landing awkwardly on his right shoulder. Maye got up and adjusted his shoulder pad, but Dr. Chao speculated that he was possibly flexing his shoulder after that fall. After the following play, as Maye huddled up, he could be seen on the TV broadcast flexing that right shoulder. On the ensuing play, Maye threw a flea-flicker pass to Mack Hollins for a 31-yard gain, helping set up an eventual field goal try that was ultimately no good. But Maye's shoulder looked OK on that throw, a perfect drop in the bucket to Hollins' hands.

That doesn't mean Maye didn't at least feel a little something on that scramble, possibly tweak his shoulder a little bit. At the end of the day, Maye's throwing accuracy was off well before that play and before the snow even began to fall in Denver, and it obviously wasn't something that kept him off the field. Maye did acknowledge "some bumps and bruises" to ESPN's Mike Reiss, but in this sport, those are to be expected throughout the locker room after playing your 20th game of the season.

So, it's unclear at this point whether Maye is just your standard level of banged up after a tough game, or it's something more than that which the team needs to manage over the next two weeks. It's not something to just ignore, though, because we're talking about the franchise quarterback of a Super Bowl team. There's virtually no chance this is something that affects his status for the Super Bowl, anyway. But at the moment, something to monitor.