After a 10-7 win over the AFC Championship Game, New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye is set to become the second-youngest quarterback ever to play in a Super Bowl. In just his second season, the young star is second in MVP odds to Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford. His quick rise may have been unexpected to some, but one fan saw Maye’s future stardom from the beginning.
A 2012 tweet resurfaced after New England’s victory, in which a user called Maye the best athlete he’d “ever seen.”
Holy crap Drake Maye is the best athlete I’ve ever seen. Playing up a league and still the best in the league
— Justin Farkas (@farkasaurus) August 25, 2012
Growing up in Huntersville, N.C., 29-year-old Justin Farkas was close with the Maye family. During the summer, he and his two brothers often overlapped with the four Maye boys at sporting events in the Charlotte metropolitan area. Twelve years later, he remembers the hot summer day well. He was in attendance for a Junior Eagles Football Association (JEFA) youth football game. Maye and his brother were playing. Immediately, Drake’s performance stood out.
“I remember Drake being at least a foot shorter than everyone else out there,” Farkas wrote in a message to The Athletic. “He definitely did not have the same growth spurt yet that all of his brothers had had in their early teens. If you just looked at him, size-wise, compared to everyone else, you would have expected him to get tossed around, but he was actually the one tossing people around, knocking them over, running circles around them.”
As a nine-year-old, Maye was dominating in a league full of kids two or three years older than him.
he was 9 years old, maybe 4.5 feet tall and 80lbs, playing up a league with 11/12 year olds, stiff arming them and running circles around them
— Justin Farkas (@farkasaurus) January 26, 2026
Farkas remembers Maye not as the quarterback, but as the running back. After all, it was Maye’s 66 rushing yards on 10 carries, including a game-sealing first-down scramble in the final moments, that helped propel New England to a victory on Sunday. Maye finished fourth among quarterbacks in rushing yards this season.
While Farkas always believed in Drake, he followed his brother more closely. Luke Maye was one year behind Farkas in school and grew into a basketball star. An All-American at North Carolina in 2018, the eldest brother was a national champion with the Tar Heels in 2017.
“With all the Maye boys, you always knew they had a chance at doing something big in the sports world, and any chance you get to hype them up, you take it,” Farkas said. “Their parents did a hell of a job raising them to be stand-up guys who work smart, work hard, and lift others up. So getting to see them all, especially Drake now, live up to that potential has been the part that’s really vindicating.”
A data engineer, Farkas has watched his prediction circulate across social media in the last 24 hours. Flaming Hot Takes, a social media account with over 107,000 followers, retweeted Farkas, garnering over 1.8 million impressions on X.
“It’s been quite a whirlwind since last night,” Farkas said. “Albeit a fun one.”
Maye and the Patriots will face the Seattle Seahawks in Santa Clara, Calif., for Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8. It’s a safe bet Farkas will be watching.