It’s December 2025.

The two-minute warning of a one-score game. The Patriots just called timeout.

White snow falls from a black Foxboro sky, coating Gillette Stadium. “Mr. Brightside,” or another songs that always stirs a crowd’s soul in a way you can’t quite explain but always feel, blares from the loudspeakers. The sound fades out as play resumes, but the music lives on through a bellowing, sold-out crowd.

Drake Maye trots back from the Patriots’ sideline and into the huddle. He’s conferred with Jerod Mayo and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt about how to play this upcoming third-and-7. Eliot Wolf watches from a cozy booth up high, his remade roster pushing for a Wild Card spot far down below.

Maye claps his hands. The huddles breaks. Go time.

You can see it. Almost feel it. A frigid Foxboro moment of hope and promise. A young, gutsy quarterback at the center of it all.

This is what the Patriots have been building to all offseason. Laying foundational pieces of their new future. Hoisting tentpoles for their rebuilding program.

New head coach? Check. New personnel head? Check. New quarterback with all the natural talent the old regime didn’t believe was necessary when it picked Mac Jones three years ago?

Massive check.

And the requisite toughness and security, too. Drake Maye is here almost because of who he is, and who he’s not relative to Mac Jones.

The Patriots learned a lot from the Jones experience. How not to support a rookie quarterback. Why arm talent and playmaking matter more than they had previously believed. How any crack in a quarterback’s leadership, toughness or body language can sink a locker room’s confidence in him.

What Bill Belichick had to say about new Patriots QB Drake Maye

Remember: the first public comment Eliot Wolf made about this year’s quarterbacks class was a glowing review of their collective toughness. Maye, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix Jr., right down the line. That was experience talking; having witnessed Jones’ failure, and the success Brett Favre had pushing through most of his NFL record 297 consecutive starts in Green Bay, where Wolf grew up as the son of ex-Packers GM and Hall of Famer Ron Wolf.

Jerod Mayo singled out Maye’s toughness, too, when asked Thursday what about the quarterback’s tape most impressed him in the pre-draft process. He even invoked Tom Brady with his answer.

“The thing that most impressed me about him, he would get smashed and just get right back up,” Mayo said. “That’s the same trait — you had a guy like Tom Brady — (I’m) not saying that he’s Tom, but just that mentality. Same thing with Joe Burrow. Those guys just keep getting back up and continuing to play at a high level, and that was like the a-ha moment for me.”

The foundation the Patriots laid three years ago Jones was far shakier than anyone could have known at the time. That won’t be the case this time, because of Maye and how the organization intends to reinforce itself around him.

There won’t be an ex-defensive coordinator as an offensive play-caller. Or any alienating Maye behind closed doors. Or a refusal to treat wide receiver like a premium position that deserves premium investment.

“I just think we need to support him in any way we can, on the field, off the field. We need to add some weapons to the offense. We need to shore up the offensive line,” Wolf said.

North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye poses with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell after being chosen by the New England Patriots with the third overall pick during the first round of the NFL football draft, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Will Maye succeed? No one knows. Most quarterbacks don’t. That’s the truth of the position, of the NFL, of life under pressure.

But Thursday was not about results. It was about hope. Hope springing again in Foxboro for however long, before a season that is guaranteed to bring more pain and losing.

One final thought: Belichick, through a smile, seemed to dismiss Maye during his live appearance on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show Draft Spectacular.”

“Drake compares himself a lot to Josh Allen. … We’ll see about that,” Belichick said.” I think there are some comparisons with size and athleticism, but Josh Allen is a pretty special player.”

That’s true. All true.

But it’s oddly fitting, considering Belichick was just about the last person to realize’s Allen’s greatness in the NFL. Belichick dismissed Allen to ESPN before a Monday night Patriots-Bills game in December 2020; the first year Allen became a perennial MVP candidate. Allen went on to own the highest career passer rating of any quarterback to make more than five career starts or attempt at least 200 passes versus Belichick.

Maye, physically, is cut from the same cloth as Allen. He’s raw and dangerous, and a bit reckless. But at the two-minute warning, with the game on the line, there is just one quarterback, maybe two, you would rather have than Allen.

Because Allen can rip tight-window throws, he can create, he can score and win on his own, even against a perfectly set initial defense; the same as Maye did in college.

“Yeah, not to take anything away from anyone else in the program,” Wolf said Thursday, “but the game was on his shoulders for them (at North Carolina).

The Patriots can win like that now, too, because of their new quarterback.

They can rebuild and remake themselves as a contender because of Maye; the final piece to the new era puzzle in New England.