Super Bowl QB tale of the tape: Who has the edge between Drake Maye and Sam Darnold?

Five times in the last seven seasons, Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes was one of the Super Bowl's starting quarterbacks. To wrap up the 2025 season with Super Bowl LX, the football world gets a breath of fresh air with two first-time Super Bowl starters in Sam Darnold of the Seattle Seahawks and Drake Maye of the New England Patriots.

Super Bowl LX will actually be the first Super Bowl ever between two starting quarterbacks and two head coaches -- Mike Macdonald of the Seahawks and Mike Vrabel of the Patriots -- who are all in their first or second season with their respective teams, per CBS Sports Research. However, that doesn't mean firepower is lacking at the position: Maye and Darnold have combined for 33 wins across the 2025 season, including playoffs, the most between two starting quarterbacks entering a Super Bowl matchup all time, according to CBS Sports Research.

So which team -- the Patriots or the Seahawks -- has the edge at football's most important position entering its biggest game? Let's break it down with a tale of the tape that ended up being much closer than many would have thought.

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Regular season

Maye, the 2025 NFL MVP runner-up and 2025 second-team All-Pro, produced a regular season for the ages. He became the first quarterback since fellow Patriot Tom Brady in the 2007 16-0 regular season to lead the league with the best record (14-3), best completion percentage (72%) and passing yards per attempt (8.9). He's the sixth quarterback in the last 40 years to accomplish all of that in the same season, and the previous five -- Joe Montana (1989), Steve Young (1992, 1994), Kurt Warner (2001) and Brady (2007) -- all won league MVP honors for those efforts.

At age 23, Maye is also the youngest quarterback in NFL history to lead the league in both completion percentage and passing yards per attempt. He also paced the NFL in passer rating (113.5) and expected points added (EPA) per dropback (0.28).

Darnold ranked right behind Maye in passing yards per attempt with an 8.5 average, and he finished top 10 in the NFL in the following passing metrics: W-L (14-3), completion percentage (67.7%) and passing yards (4,048). He had a strong regular season overall, but Darnold also maintained some of the chaos factor that led to Seattle being his fifth NFL team, as he led the league with 20 turnovers (14 interceptions, six lost fumbles).

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Edge: Maye 

Postseason

In the playoffs, Darnold has found a higher level of play against familiar NFC West foes in the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams. He leads this postseason in yards per pass attempt (8.9), touchdown-to-interception ratio (4-0), passer rating (122.4) and EPA per dropback (0.38). Darnold also went cold turkey on turnovers, committing none in the NFC divisional round or NFC Championship Game.

Maye, on the other hand, has taken a major step back in efficiency from his regular-season performance. New England is still winning, but his play hasn't been the driving factor. He leads the postseason with 15 sacks taken -- five in each game. That figure is nine more than the next-closest players -- Justin Herbert, C.J. Stroud and Matthew Stafford -- who each took six.

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Edge: Darnold

Accuracy

It doesn't get more accurate than leading the NFL in completion percentage like Maye did at a 72% clip. Darnold wasn't far behind at 67.7%. Even more impressive, Maye wasn't just throwing into wide-open spaces: his tight-window throw rate of 17.3% ranked as the fourth-highest in the league during the 2025 regular season. Darnold didn't throw into tight windows as frequently, posting a tight-window rate of 13.6%, which ranked 22nd out of 33 qualified quarterbacks.

In the postseason, Darnold's accuracy -- like many aspects of his game -- improved. His 69.8% completion percentage ranks as the second-best this postseason behind Josh Allen's 71.6%. Maye's 55.8% completion percentage ranks eighth out of 15 playoff quarterbacks. 

However, Maye leading the NFL in completion percentage in the regular season while throwing into tight windows with regularity comes with a much larger sample size. He gets the edge here.

Edge: Maye 

Ball security

When combining both players' turnover totals this season, Darnold's 20 (all from the regular season) exceed Maye's 16 across the regular season and playoffs.

Yes, Maye's five playoff turnovers are tied for the second-most in the league with Caleb Williams and sit just two behind C.J. Stroud's playoff-worst seven. However, Maye still has four fewer turnovers than Darnold despite playing an extra game. Darnold leading the league in giveaways during the regular season is a tough hurdle to overcome.

Edge: Maye

Big-play magic

Both Super Bowl starting quarterbacks ranked top five this season in completion percentage on throws of 20-plus air yards, so the margin between the two in this area is thin. Darnold led the league in yards per pass attempt (18.5) on throws of 20-plus air yards, due in large part to his connection with 2025 NFL Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba. He completed 15 of 26 passes (57.7%) of 20-plus yards to Smith-Njigba while connecting on just over half (51.6%) when targeting all other Seahawks.

Maye threw for 1,226 passing yards on throws of 20-plus air yards (including playoffs), the second-most in the NFL behind Stafford (1,519). New England's Week 3 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers was the only game, regular season or postseason, in which Maye did not connect on a throw of 20-plus air yards.

Darnold gets the edge here over Maye based on his leg up in efficiency.

Edge: Darnold

Play-action passing

Both Darnold and Maye rank as top-five quarterbacks this season, including the playoffs, in yards per pass attempt, passing touchdowns and passer rating off play action. The separator here is efficiency, something Maye has a leg up in, particularly when it comes to completion percentage, where he's nearly 10% higher, and ball security, with four fewer interceptions.

Edge: Maye

Rushing impact

Maye's 5.9 rushing yards per carry rank second among all players with at least 10 carries this postseason, trailing only Jacksonville Jaguars running back Travis Etienne (6.7). Darnold has just three carries for nine yards this postseason, something certainly impacted by the oblique injury he dealt with in the divisional round.

In the regular season, Maye's 450 rushing yards ranked fourth among quarterbacks, while Darnold's 95 rushing yards ranked 33rd. An easy advantage for Maye here.

Edge: Maye

Pocket presence

Maye's 15 sacks are the second-most taken by any player in a single postseason in the Super Bowl era (since 1966), per NFL Next Gen Stats. His 47 regular-season sacks are also the second-most by any quarterback to go on to start the Super Bowl. It's not all on him, as his average time to throw of 3.01 seconds was the sixth-fastest among the 15 quarterbacks to start a playoff game this postseason, but his awareness when the pocket collapses needs to improve.

Darnold took 10 fewer sacks this postseason with a slightly faster average time to throw of 2.98 seconds. The Seahawks quarterback, now in his eighth NFL season, holds the edge over Maye in this area, which makes sense given that 2025 was just the Patriots passer's second year as a pro.

Edge: Darnold

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Super Bowl experience

Maye is aiming to become the first quarterback since Tom Brady (2001) to win a Super Bowl in the season of his first playoff start. Darnold, now on his fifth NFL team, is angling to become the fourth quarterback to win a Super Bowl on his third team or later, and the first to do so on his fourth team or later.

Edge: Draw

Head-to-head history

Yes, quarterbacks face opposing defenses, but the game is still very much discussed as quarterback vs. quarterback. Eli Manning beat Tom Brady twice in the Super Bowl despite Brady actually facing the New York Giants' ferocious four-man pass rush in those two matchups. Super Bowl LX will mark the first time Darnold and Maye share the field in the same game.

Edge: Draw

The final verdict

The tally from our 10 categories, with two recorded as draws, is as follows:

1. Drake Maye (5)
2. Sam Darnold (3)

This is a little closer than some would have thought when evaluating these two quarterbacks on the surface. Darnold certainly closed the gap in the postseason against two division opponents, so it will be interesting to see how he fares against a former division foe in the Patriots.

However, he hasn't faced New England since the 2021 season, when he started against them as a member of the Carolina Panthers. He has since developed significantly while being coached by Kyle Shanahan with the 49ers, Kevin O'Connell with the Vikings and Klint Kubiak with the Seahawks.

The Patriots can certainly take solace in having the MVP runner-up in Maye at the controls of their offense on Sunday, but he'll have his work cut out for him against Seattle's No. 1 scoring defense (17.2 points per game allowed in the regular season).