Where there’s a victor, there’s a loser, and sometimes, certain athletes contribute to their team’s shortcomings. These athletes are favorably called bobbleheads.
New England Patriots - Quarterback Drake Maye
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye came second in MVP votes at the end of the 2025 NFL season, but that’s not something viewers would have guessed if they’d watched the fourth quarter of their Wednesday night matchup against the Seahawks.
The kickoff game was a rematch of the Super Bowl that saw Drake Maye play poorly in a blowout loss for the Patriots. Six months later, it looked as if very little had changed for Maye as the Seattle defense still stifled his play.
However, this time Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold injured his glute tendon on just the fifth play of the game, so the Seahawks offense had to rely on backup quarterback Drew Lock.
Usually this spells doom for an NFL team, but the Seahawks defense had other plans, as they picked off Maye three times, including the game-losing interception in the endzone when all the Patriots needed was a field goal to force overtime.
This was a performance that both Drake Maye himself and Patriots fans will want to forget.
Los Angeles Rams - Sean McVay
There was a lot of talk this offseason about how good the Rams would be this year, and why wouldn’t there have been? LA made it to the NFC Championship game last year, quarterback Matthew Stafford ended the season as the MVP and they spent the offseason bolstering their defense, including trading for Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett and giving Aaron Donald $20 million to come out of retirement.
However in Week 1, none of that seemed to matter as they got embarrassed on both sides of the ball by the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne. When a team as apparently talented as the Rams gets embarrassed in a divisional matchup as bad as a 27-7 blowout loss, the blame goes to Head Coach Sean McVay.
The offense that he calls plays for was completely shutout in the second half and the defense didn’t look any better as the 49ers offense looked like a well-oiled machine against the “Super Bowl favorites.”
They will probably bounce back when they return to the United States to play the New York Giants, but they’ll have to do it from last place in the NFC West and without Garrett, who will be out for several weeks after being placed on the IR and announcing plans to undergo surgery on his knee.
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Maybe next time the Rams have a 16-hour flight before a game, they won’t leave LA less than a couple days before they have to play.
Seattle Mariners
As the 2026 MLB regular season comes to a close, the Seattle Mariners have positioned themselves as maybe the most disappointing team in the league. At the time of publication, the Seattle Mariners are 70-80 and sit in the 9th spot in the American League. Just one year ago, this team finished their season 90-72 in regular season play, the second seed in the AL and one game from the World Series. The Mariners had a 3-2 lead in the ALCS and blew it as the Blue Jays rallied off 2 wins, including a Game 7 comeback with George Springer hitting a go-ahead 3-run homer to win 4-3 and advance to the World Series.
Cal Raleigh, the Mariners star player in 2025, hit 60 home runs and a batting average of .247 and was a finalist for the AL MVP last season. This year was a big drop off for him; he currently sits at 21 home runs with a batting average of .180. They have also not had the best years out of their starters, players like Julio Rodriguez and Josh Naylor. Seattle is also last in the MLB for runs per game. Safe to say the Mariners have had a very disappointing season after nearly competing for the pennant less than a year ago.
Marley Herndon is a beat reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on X @Dailylobo
Jacob Kagan is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on X @DailyLobo
