🔥 HOT NEWS: Mike Macdonald Saw Past the Injury Report—and Put Seattle on Alert About Drake Maye ⚡.DH

A quarterback listed on the injury report is usually a welcome sight for a Super Bowl defense. For the Seattle Seahawks, it has had the opposite effect.

As New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye appeared with a banged-up right shoulder ahead of the Super Bowl, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald delivered a message that felt less reassuring than revealing. Seattle isn’t preparing for a diminished opponent. They’re bracing for a problem.

“He is a tremendous player,” Macdonald said this week. “Strong. Fast. Great arm talent, great decision-making. We’ve got to be on our stuff up front.”

The tone mattered. There was no hedging. No polite coach-speak. Just acknowledgment that Maye—injury or not—demands full respect.

Maye’s 2025 season has been nothing short of remarkable. The 23-year-old led the NFL in completion percentage, passer rating, and yards per attempt while throwing for 4,394 yards, 31 touchdowns, and just eight interceptions.

He added another dimension with his legs, rushing for 450 yards and four scores, quietly placing himself among the league’s most dangerous dual-threat quarterbacks.

That threat has only grown in the postseason.

Against the Chargers in the Wild Card round, Maye rushed for 66 yards while throwing four touchdowns. In the AFC Championship game, amid a second-half blizzard in Denver, he scored the game’s only touchdown on a 6-yard run and finished with 65 rushing yards. It wasn’t flashy. It was controlled.

And it forced defenses to defend everything.

Macdonald made it clear that Maye’s mobility is central to Seattle’s concern, particularly on third downs. The Seahawks want to create long-yardage situations—but against Maye, those aren’t guarantees. Broken plays have become part of his signature, not accidents.

Yet the numbers also reveal vulnerability.

Maye has been sacked 15 times in the playoffs—five per game—raising quiet alarms about New England’s offensive line.

That weakness doesn’t go unnoticed in Seattle. The Seahawks recorded 47 sacks during the regular season, tied for seventh-most in the league, and their pass rush has been relentless when given opportunity.

That’s where the shoulder injury complicates everything.

Maye was added to the injury list after taking a hard hit to his throwing shoulder in the AFC Championship game. Safety Talanoa Hufanga landed squarely on him at the end of a 13-yard run, leaving Maye visibly shaken. Though he finished the game, the listing sparked immediate speculation.

Maye, however, downplayed the concern.

“I’m feeling good,” he told WEEI. He described the issue as cumulative fatigue rather than a single hit—30 weeks of throwing, four days a week. Extra rest, he said, has helped. He sounded confident. Almost dismissive.

That confidence may be what unsettles Seattle the most.

Macdonald’s comments suggest the Seahawks aren’t counting on pain or limitation to slow Maye down.

Instead, they’re preparing for a quarterback who can punish over-aggression, escape collapsing pockets, and turn third-and-long into something far more dangerous.

There are still flaws in New England’s offense. Protection issues remain real. Sustaining drives against Seattle’s front will be difficult. And no quarterback, especially one nursing an injury, can survive constant pressure.

But this Super Bowl isn’t shaping up as a battle of health reports. It’s shaping up as a battle of discipline.

Drake Maye enters the game as a frontrunner for the league MVP, a rare position for someone so early in his career. He also enters with something else—momentum that hasn’t slowed, even when conditions tried to stop it.

The Seahawks understand that now.

And as they prepare for the biggest game of the year, one thing feels increasingly clear:

The injury report may say “questionable.”
Seattle’s mindset does not.