DHL Dan CCCVII - The Drake Passage

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank ranks the current top dogs of Boston sports:

With all respect to Jayson Tatum, Patriots QB Drake Maye is Boston’s No. 1 star, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while packing for Seattle …

⋅ Is it OK to declare that Drake Maye is Boston’s No. 1 star athlete? Will this prompt big-time pushback from the formidable Jayson Tatum fan club?

I’m OK with it. The NFL is by far America’s No. 1 spectator sport and Maye is coming off a season in which he completed 72 percent of his passes, took his team to the Super Bowl, and placed a close second to the Rams’ Matthew Stafford as league Most Valuable Player. All that at the age of 23.

Argue for Tatum if you must, but he’s probably never going to be better than what we’ve seen and he’s never been voted the second-best player in the NBA. Give me the Drake. The NFL is far bigger than the NBA and Maye has a chance to become one of the faces of the league. It feels like the best is yet to come from New England’s fast-talkin’, slow-walkin’, humble hero of the hashmarks.