Long before Sam Howell became best friends with Drake Maye, he was aware of him. Maye’s parents were standout high school athletes, and his father, Mark, played quarterback at the University of North Carolina. His brothers, Luke and Beau, played basketball there (Luke hit a last-second shot that sent the Tar Heels to the Final Four in 2017, en route to an NCAA championship).
A third brother, Cole, also won a national title in 2017, but at a different school (Florida) and in a different sport (baseball). Former UNC offensive coordinator Phil Longo called the family “the Mannings of North Carolina.”
Drake was the youngest, and went down the football path. He and Howell, both quarterbacks, became acquainted through seven-on-seven leagues in the Charlotte area.
In 2019, when Howell was a freshman quarterback at UNC, he attended one of his future protégé’s high school playoff games. Howell was impressed. But it wasn’t until 2021, Maye’s first season with the Tar Heels, that Howell realized how much they had in common.
Howell was the entrenched starter, and Maye was the backup — a situation that doesn’t always lend itself to friendship. But these two were the exception. They became “attached at the hip,” in the words of former coach Mack Brown, and not just on the field.
The quarterbacks were fiercely competitive, and would battle each other on the golf course, at the ping-pong table, and more.
“Drake was so competitive, if I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to get to the doorknob before you do, he would jump over a table to get there,’” Longo said. “That’s just kind of how he was. [Sam was] that way, too.”
The two quarterbacks have stayed close, FaceTiming on a near-daily basis since Howell was drafted by Washington in 2022 and Maye was drafted by New England in 2024.
Their careers have taken different trajectories. Howell, 25, has bounced around the league, from the Commanders to the Seattle Seahawks to the Minnesota Vikings to the Eagles, where he served as a third-string quarterback this past season.
Maye, 23, will start in Super Bowl LX for the New England Patriots on Sunday, in just his second season in the NFL.
Howell feels no ill will. He has attended every New England playoff game since the Eagles were eliminated, and will be in the Bay Area this weekend to support his friend.
“[I’m] extremely proud of him,” Howell said. “He’s worked his whole life to be where he is and he’s getting what he deserves. He was made for the big moments and I have no doubt he’ll be ready to go.”
Football junkies
Longo described Howell as a “football junkie.” He’d pore over film and challenge his coaches with tough questions. Before he’d even signed with North Carolina, in late 2018, the quarterback started asking Longo for offensive information.
The coordinator didn’t hand it over until everything was official. But once he did, Howell began studying. Longo would send him formations, and Howell would teach them back to his coach a few hours later.
This went on throughout Christmas break, until the start of classes.
“By the time he showed up in mid-January, from a mental standpoint, he actually already knew the entire offense,” Longo said. “Which is rare and pretty impressive.”
Howell would constantly bring up new routes and concepts to the coaching staff. Instead of waiting to be told what they’d run on Monday, he’d be a part of designing plays on Sunday night.
To Longo, quizzing Howell in the quarterbacks room became an exercise in futility. The quarterback always seemed to have the right answer, not because he was winging it, but because he’d reviewed virtually everything.
It set an example for the future Patriots QB.
“Drake may not admit this, or remember it, but it got to a point where any time I asked an open question and didn’t direct it at one individual quarterback, Sam would always answer first,” Longo recalled. “And obviously he was correct. But Drake was competitive, and [he would] try to answer the question first, and beat Sam out.
“My analyst and I both noticed that, and we loved it. Because it was Drake just wanting to get better.”
Howell had been the starting quarterback since his freshman year, and Maye knew that wasn’t going to change. But neither player was threatened by the other. They started throwing after practice, bringing along wide receivers to work on routes, drop backs, and trigger times.
They’d often give each other feedback, both good and bad. Brown said that Maye would be waiting for Howell to come off the field after every game.
“To talk to him about what he saw,” Brown said. “So, you had two great minds that were talking about every play. And one of them, out of the action, standing over there watching, could say, ‘Here’s what I saw. Look for this.’”
He added: “It’s very unusual to have two people competing for the same [role] that care about each other so much, respect each other so much. And that’s the reason it worked. For me, as a head coach, it was like a marriage made in heaven.”
They had their stylistic differences. Maye’s biggest strength was his ability to make accurate throws while off-platform and off-balance, a feat Longo credited to his footwork, honed by years of youth and high school basketball.
Howell’s was physical strength that allowed him to break tackles by running downhill.
Their communication styles were different, too. Maye was more of a vocal leader, and Howell tended to pull guys off to the side. But the two quarterbacks complemented each other.
“When he was backing me up at Carolina, he was really good at making me feel very confident going into games,” Howell said. “And just trying to give me that last sense of peace.
“Before every game in college he’d tell me I was the best player on the field. Little things like that. He’s a great leader, great motivator.”
It didn’t take long for the quarterbacks — and their coaches — to realize they shared a relentless competitive spark. Longo remembered a recruiting event when Howell and Maye played ping-pong until the lights shut off.
In training camp, they’d have ping-pong “battles,” tacking on rounds until each side was ready to acquiesce. In 2021, Maye introduced Howell to golf, shifting their off-field rivalry to a new sport.
It was not a relaxing endeavor.
“I would see them afterward,” Brown said. “They’d say, ‘Oh man, he got me by four strokes.’ It was like the U.S. Open or something. It wasn’t like two quarterbacks going out to play.
“And the other one would say, ‘Yeah, but I just missed a putt or I would have beaten him.’ It was like two little kids going at each other’s throats.”
Added Howell: “Sometimes people invite us out to play, and they’re surprised with how the round is going. There’ll be times in the round where we’re not talking to each other and stuff like that. It’s a lot of fun.”
After Howell graduated, he stayed in touch with his mentee. In September 2022, months after the Commanders drafted him in the fifth round, Howell attended a UNC road game against Appalachian State.
It ended up being the highest-scoring game (including combined points) in school history. Maye had five touchdowns (four passing, one rushing) and 428 total yards in a 63-61 UNC win.
In the third quarter, Maye scored on a 12-yard run for his fourth touchdown of the day. Howell, by coincidence, was standing just past the end zone, as if he was waiting for his best friend.
He gave the quarterback a high five and a hug.
“I told him, after I ran it in, I should have gotten on a knee and held the ball up to him,” Maye told local reporters. “Because what he did here [at UNC] is pretty incredible.”
An NFL friendship
Just before Maye’s final season at UNC, he and Howell became roommates for a few months. It was Howell’s NFL offseason — January to April in 2023 — and they lived together in an apartment in Chapel Hill.
When they weren’t working out, or at the golf course, they were playing the board game Catan and EA Sports’ PGA Tour at home.
Maye was drafted with the third overall pick a year later. Howell, a 17-game starter with the Commanders in 2023, was traded to Seattle a month before the 2024 draft, and was subsequently dealt to the Vikings and then the Eagles in 2025.
As Maye and Howell navigated the ups and downs of the NFL, they continued to talk every day. Howell said they’d go over defenses they were seeing that week.
Sometimes, Maye would hype his friend up, the same way he did before Carolina games.
“Even when I was playing in the NFL and we weren’t winning a lot, he would always still call me to instill confidence in me,” Howell said. “He’s great about that.”
Since the Eagles lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the wild-card round on Jan. 11, Howell has attended every one of Maye’s games. He’ll be at the Super Bowl on Sunday, brimming with pride for his golf buddy.
But before it starts, there’s one thing he’ll make sure to do.
“I’ll definitely talk to him before the game,” Howell said. “Let him know that he was born for these moments, and he’s going to light it up.”
