The weird part of Drake Maye’s injury and making sense of Patriots’ QB concern for Super Bowl originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The New England Patriots put out an injury report on Wednesday.
In every other week of the NFL season, that would be normal. But this week, it’s weird. The Super Bowl isn’t on this upcoming Sunday. It’s a week from Sunday.
And so the Wednesday injury report was just an estimate, not an official report. The Pats didn’t actually hold a practice.
Teams sometimes put out estimated reports during the season on the first practice day of a short week, so it’s not a new concept. But it does create extra weirdness around Drake Maye’s conceptual right shoulder injury.
NFL viewers pointed out on social media after Sunday’s AFC Championship Game that Maye appeared to get his shoulder driven into the ground on one play.
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On Wednesday’s injury report, Maye was listed as a limited practice participant. But really, all that’s saying is that if the Patriots had actually practice, they believe he may have been limited.
And again, that report came out 10 days before the Super Bowl, so it’s not particularly informative.
Patriots projected Wednesday injury report had the team practiced today: https://t.co/HFLj6pLTCapic.twitter.com/0OECIoe8aJ
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 28, 2026
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It’s fair for Patriots fans to be concerned. They’d obviously prefer not to have Joshua Dobbs playing QB for them in the Super Bowl.
But there’s also a lot of time, and not a lot of concrete information.
Besides, the odds that Maye would let a middling injury keep him out of the biggest game of his life are miniscule. Maybe an injured shoulder would impact his performance, but there’s still plenty of time to heal up.
The two-week gap between the conference title games and the Super Bowl makes everything feel a bit out of sync, including Maye’s injury situation, but in the end, that might help things work out better for New England.
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