Drake Maye played poorly in Super Bowl LX and was a big reason why the New England Patriots lost the game.
Based on what we have learned since, that may have contributed to the shoulder injury Maye was nursing up to the game. In an end-of-season press conference with reporters on Tuesday, Maye revealed he injured his throwing arm in the AFC championship game and needed an injection to be 100 percent healthy for the Super Bowl.
Patriots fans panicked all week about what ultimately came to be with Maye, that his arm would hamper him and the team’s offense. But nobody knew for sure how badly Maye was hurt.
Nick Wright wants to solve that problem.
Wednesday on First Things First, the FS1 host called on the NFL to dole out “some type of punishment” to New England for “fudging” its final injury report last week heading into the big game.
“At this point, the NFL has no choice but to put some type of punishment on the Patriots for their Super Bowl injury report,” Wright said.
“If we are at Wednesday, and the number one story is the quarterback’s injury, the quarterback said, ‘I had the shoulder shot up,’ that he was dealing with something. And especially in the modern NFL world, where gambling is legal if not encouraged, it is the quarterback of a Super Bowl that I know no way to read it other than the team … fudged information on the final injury report leading into the Super Bowl. I think the NFL is obligated, whether it’s taking picks … they have to do something.”
Nick Wright wants the NFL to punish the Patriots for hiding Drake Maye’s injury
“It is the quarterback of a Super Bowl team that … the team fudged information on the final injury report leading into the Super Bowl.” pic.twitter.com/MuvXsGMR2M
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 11, 2026
As many viewers pointed out, Maye technically was on New England’s final injury report. The second-year QB was listed under the “No Game Status Given” portion of the report, where teams typically place players who were previously listed. Getting removed from the injury report is a signifier that a player was a full participant in practice.
But Wright believes the Patriots were too secretive about Maye’s true status. Clearly, the young QB was hampered — even though he did participate in the team’s final practice and played in the Super Bowl.
“The quarterback of one of the teams in the Super Bowl said in this press conference, ‘I hurt my shoulder in the AFC championship game, I had it shot up before the Super Bowl,’ and he was not on the injury report, the final one going into the Super Bowl,” Wright said. “That to me is not great.”
If anything, it sounds like Wright is actually calling for an update to how the NFL produces injury reports. It appears that New England technically followed the letter of the law, even if the outcome belied the fact that Maye would be hampered on game day.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.