Colin Cowherd spent Thursday arguing that the New England Patriots’ season-opening collapse had less to do with Drake Maye’s three interceptions than with the receiver standing on the other end of two of those possessions.
The FS1 host, on “The Herd,” said the Patriots would have beaten the Seattle Seahawks if Romeo Doubs had held onto the football. The official account posted the clip with Cowherd’s assessment.
“If Romeo Doubs could actually catch – which he can’t and that’s why the Packers let him go – they win that game last night,” Cowherd said.
The comment arrived hours after New England blew a 10-0 lead and lost 13-10 on Wednesday night in a Super Bowl rematch at Lumen Field. Maye finished 23 of 33 for 178 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions, all in the fourth quarter. It was the first three-interception game of his career.
Cowherd said he was not overly concerned about those turnovers. The show graphic that accompanied the segment noted Maye’s recent trouble against Seattle: 11.5 points per game, a 3-6 touchdown-to-giveaway mark, a 68.6 passer rating and nine sacks across his last two meetings with the Seahawks.
The sequence Cowherd highlighted began early in the fourth quarter, with New England still ahead. Maye forced a deep ball toward Doubs that Rodney Thomas II deflected. Nehemiah Pritchett intercepted it. Drew Lock, in the game after Sam Darnold left with a hip injury on Seattle’s first series, then hit Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a 45-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 to tie the score at 10.
On the next Patriots drive, Maye found Doubs open on a crossing route for what would have been a first down. Doubs looked upfield before securing the catch and dropped it. On the following snap, Julian Love intercepted a throw intended for DeMario Douglas. Jason Myers kicked a 26-yard field goal for a 13-10 lead with 5:50 remaining.
Maye still drove New England to the Seattle 16-yard line in the final minute, inside field-goal range with timeouts left. He then lofted a back-foot pass toward Mack Hollins in the end zone. Josh Jobe made a toe-tapping interception with 21 seconds remaining to end it.
Maye did not share Cowherd’s emphasis.
“I just stopped being patient,” Maye said. “We were really good up to the point where I tried to force one down the sideline to Romeo — where we were patient and dumping it off and trying to move the chains. … Just stopped being patient and made decisions that ended up costing us the game.” He called the night “unacceptable.”
Doubs finished without a catch on three targets in his Patriots debut. The former Packer signed a four-year, $68 million contract in March after Green Bay let him reach free agency.
“That had nothing to do with Drake,” Doubs said of the drop. “That was 150 percent on me. … I just wasn’t locked in enough. That’s all. I mean, the video speaks for itself.”
The Packers did not cut Doubs so much as decline to keep him at that price. He caught 55 passes for 724 yards and six touchdowns last season and averaged just over 50 receptions a year in four Green Bay seasons. Drop concerns followed him anyway.
One 2024 study ranked his 9.8% drop rate 19th among 84 receivers with at least 50 targets. In 2025 his drop rate sat near 6.0%, slightly better than the league average of 6.28% for qualified receivers, though critics long argued his misses arrived on third downs and late drives.
Coach Mike Vrabel was blunt about the quarterback’s night.
“You can’t throw three interceptions,” Vrabel said. He added, “We want to be aggressive, not reckless.” Maye became only the second quarterback in the past 25 seasons to throw three interceptions in the fourth quarter of a season opener, joining Baker Mayfield in 2019.
The loss reopened an old matchup problem. Maye’s only previous multi-interception game, including the playoffs, came against these same Seahawks in Super Bowl LX. He was last season’s MVP runner-up after leading the NFL with a 72.0% completion rate, 8.9 yards per attempt and a 113.5 passer rating, with 31 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
On Wednesday he went 20 of 23 for 134 yards and a score on throws under 10 air yards, then 3 of 8 for 44 yards and three interceptions on throws of 10-plus yards.
Lock, who threw only three passes last season, completed 16 of 22 for 187 yards and the tying score. Smith-Njigba had eight catches for 122 yards. Darnold’s status for Week 2 was not immediately clear.
A.J. Brown, the New England Patriots’ other high-priced offseason addition, left with an ankle injury and was later seen in a walking boot, raising the possibility Doubs will have to play a larger role Sunday against Pittsburgh.
Cowherd’s clip drew immediate pushback online, including from viewers who noted Maye’s final interception came from field-goal range with time and timeouts remaining. The host’s argument was simpler: a $68 million receiver is signed to finish plays, and two unfinished ones flipped a 10-0 game.
One night does not settle that debate. It did, however, give Cowherd the line that defined Thursday’s show.
