David Goldman/Associated Press
ATLANTA — There was Brandin Cooks, his left arm in the sky, sprinting wide, wide, wide open into the end zone. Nobody was even close to him. Three defenders had jumped a route underneath. With one Jared Goff dart, the Rams were about to capitalize on a bizarre glitch in Bill Belichick‘s defensive masterpiece and take command of Super Bowl LIII.
From afar, cornerback Jason McCourty saw this doomsday scenario playing out before his eyes. He saw the blue jersey. He saw no white jerseys. And he thought: Take off. Run. Just give yourself a chance.
There was no “Oh s–t!” moment because there was no time for an “Oh s–t!” moment. His arms pumped as he exerted every ounce of energy he could possibly muster. Even as he sprinted, he didn’t think he’d realistically make it. He was convinced he’d hit Cooks just after he had already made the catch, tapped two feet down and given the Rams the lead.
Wouldn’t that just be Jason’s career in a nutshell? Devin, his twin brother, the Patriots lifer, was the winner. Jason was the loser. Jason was the one on an 0-16 team a year ago. Jason was the one on an 0-16 team that didn’t even want him anymore after this past offseason.
But, with Devin watching helplessly behind the play, the ball hung in the air juuuust long enough. Jason covered endless amounts of green, arriving in the nick of time, whacking Cooks across the arm and saving a touchdown.
“I was able to get it out of there and give us a second chance,” Jason said after the game.
Of course, his brother, Devin, was left wanting more: “He probably could have been there closer to pick it. That’s what he was supposed to do.”
As it happened, with 3:42 left in the third quarter, it was already clear this was a crucial play.
In retrospect, it was likely the play that made the Super Bowl. The play that kept the Rams from seizing the momentum they had started to wrap their hands around with Todd Gurley showing signs of life and an injury to Pats star safety Patrick Chung earlier that quarter.
Behind a violent, suffocating defense that simultaneously turned each drive into a mind-twisting calculus exam, the Patriots won their sixth Super Bowl. One play was bound to swing an offensively challenged game. And right when the Rams appeared primed to stick their dagger into the New England dynasty—right when they caught Belichick’s defense snoozing—the safety forever stuck serving as his twin brother’s Super Bowl chauffeur appeared practically out of thin air.
Yeah, this 13-3 win was even more proof that Tom Brady and Belichick are unquestioned GOATs and that Julian Edelman should be in the Hall of Fame conversation. But it was also a reminder of all the other players who are the essence of this Patriots dynasty.
Jason and Devin have waited their entire 31-year-old lives for this, to accomplish this together. When Greg Zuerlein’s kick sailed wide left with five seconds to go, it was as if they were back on their Valley Cottage Pop Warner team. Where it all began.
The two found each other in that moment at the 20-yard line. And hugged. And smacked each other. And locked arms while side-shuffling down to the 10-yard line.
Right then, everything was worth it—the Titans‘ and Browns‘ misery, the living miles away from his twin—and all Jason could think was, We did it.
We did it.
We did it.
Eventually, the brothers worked their way back into the bowels of the stadium, where teammates were popping bottles of champagne and dancing to Sheck Wes’ “Mo Bamba.” Kyle Van Noy crouched low into a jig of a dance. A massive boombox was hurled over the shoulder of another player. Everyone was shouting and rapping, and even Belichick walked through with a smile on his face.
Wearing “Mama We Made It” shirts, the twins soaked it in.
“We always dreamed about playing together,” Jason said. “And I don’t even think we dreamed about winning a Super Bowl together. Because I don’t think the dreams got that far. It was just like, Man, if we can just get a chance to play together. And now, to actually have done it, man, it’s just so surreal.”
Added Devin, “Awesome. Flat-out awesome. Awesome.”
Both know that moment, and the play that helped make it, was no accident.
It took weeks, months, years for the McCourtys to get there.
Tragedy bonded them before they even knew it. The memory is too distant to recall. But when Devin and Jason were three years old, their father went into cardiac arrest and died after suffering an asthma attack.
Calvin McCourty, an Army veteran, was the father figure they’d never have.
The twins had a brother who was 16 years older off fighting in the Gulf War. They had their mother. And, of course, they had each other.
Now, both know just how much losing Dad brought the family closer together. And how Mom, Phyllis Harrell, in the words of Jason, “did everything.” Her tough love became their foundation in life. There was no such thing as waiting until they got home to be punished. Spankings were common, and Phyllis kept a belt in her purse as a warning. Both Devin and Jason knew the threat of that belt’s wrath always lingered—be it at the mall, the grocery store, wherever.
Mom, thankfully, never used it in public, but she always kept them on their toes.
Both twins knew that if their grades suffered, she’d yank them right off their sports teams. When Jason pulled a C in one class, he was given a stern warning, and then recovered.
Jason remembers how Mom constantly pointed out men on TV or men in their extended family as examples of how not to act. And, gradually, the McCourty twins matured.
Nothing slowed Phyllis down, not even needing to go on disability after a car accident led to multiple surgeries and a knee replacement. Not even doctors thinking she had leukemia after misreading her white blood cell count.
A loss that could’ve derailed the McCourty twins for life—losing a father—never did. Instead, they were forged as resilient, tough-minded individuals in their mother’s image.
“If you asked her, if she was sitting right in this chair,” Jason said, “she’ll tell you a woman can raise a boy to become a man.”
Added Devin, “She’s been my hero since I was young. … My mom’s sacrifices throughout the years, what she was able to do for her kids, I think taught me how to step up and be a man, be a father, be a husband, and has really changed my life.”
Having the unique bond—and sometimes rivalry—also shaped them. They clashed, as all brothers do, but they also couldn’t bear to be separated.
Yes, Devin and Jason had heated one-on-one basketball games growing up, but they never kept score. They preferred to team up and play an older set of twins two-on-two. Yes, Devin and Jason had spirited shouting matches during Madden…but they usually were playing on the same team. Not against each other. And yes, the bickering would get loud..but when it did, Mom would walk into their room and simply turn the machine off, and the message was sent.
In the huddle of high school basketball games, Devin would accuse Jason (who made it clear to B/R that he was the superior player) of not playing good enough defense. A verbal spat would break out, and the team’s timeout clock would drip down to 25…20…15 seconds until their coach finally yelled at them to shut up.
They always, in the end, brought the best out of each other and knew that. That’s why, from the days of Pop Warner, the McCourtys have always refused to line up in the Oklahoma drill against each other, even when friends begged them to. Jason didn’t want the two of them to serve as cheap “entertainment” for others.
The only entertainment they wanted to provide, even as young as five years old, was in winning. The two vividly recall their four state title games in Pop Warner. They won, lost two.
The team schedule posted on their refrigerator was always full of markings. Both McCourtys marked, weekly, how many touchdowns they scored. One year, they each had 11.
There was something special about that time. Quaint. Something so cool to them about Mom printing out MapQuest directions, getting lost in a random town and trying to figure out a way to the game on their own.
The twins were together, and that’s what mattered.
David Banks/Associated Press
“We always wanted to be on the same team,” Jason said. “I motivate him and he motivates me.”
Added Devin, “We’ve been super competitive—work well together but go at each other pretty hard at times.”
At Rutgers, both blossomed into legitimate NFL prospects. Even after Jason was drafted in the 2009 sixth round by Tennessee and Devin in the 2010 first round by New England, both assumed they’d wind up on the same team. Eventually.
They had to. That’s how their lives were always supposed to work—paralleled.
Then, an entire decade passed.
Devin, a two-time Pro Bowler, reached four Super Bowls. Jason earned a six-year, $43 million contract at one point with the Titans—but kept losing. And losing. And spending those four Super Bowls as his brother’s own Dwight Schrute-like assistant. From Indianapolis (Giants 21, Patriots 17) to Glendale, Ariz. (Patriots 28, Seahawks 24) to Houston (Patriots 34, Falcons 28) to Minneapolis (Eagles 41, Patriots 33), Jason was right there with Devin. Sort of. He was a spectator, there to help alleviate any and all stress any way he could. He’d do some interviews on radio row or attend a signing event or two before coordinating dinners, travel, trips to the NFL Experience for friends and family.
He lived out Super Bowl Week as the other McCourty.
It sounds awful. Borderline depressing, even.
Not so, he assured.
He wanted to be with Devin…even if it meant in a hotel, instead of on a field.
“I wouldn’t say there were low moments,” Jason said. “I’d say there were times, obviously myself or any other person who’s not playing right now in the season, would sit there like, Dang, I want to go through that. I want to see what that’s like. But beyond that, if you think about it, you share your entire life with somebody and you both sit there and share the dream of making it—and you’re both playing in the NFL and you’re very proud of that—so if I couldn’t make it to the playoffs, to be able to travel…and watch Dev, for me, that’s the next best thing.”
Sharing Super Bowl wins with Devin—confetti falling—was special.
Yet a piece of him was missing.
They weren’t truly together. Not like those days in Pop Warner, leaving their friends in the dust.
When Jason became a free agent in 2017, the timing wasn’t right in New England with the Patriots inking Stephon Gilmore to a mega deal and Malcolm Butler not yet disposed. One year, zero wins and 16 losses later, opportunity knocked. News swirled that the Browns were considering releasing Jason, so Devin texted Belichick, “Coach!!! What’s up? Two McCourtys are better than one.” The full-court press was on.
“We figured we’re hitting double digits (years in the league),” Jason said. “It was going to be now or never. [Devin] helped make it happen.”
Charles Krupa/Associated Press
There was no answer for a good 45 minutes, and then Belichick called Devin with the good news.
New England was sending a sixth-rounder to the Browns for Jason and a seventh-rounder.
That’s all it took. The reunion was complete.
But then the reunion nearly ended before Week 1.
Long before the red, white and blue confetti rained in Atlanta, the McCourtys were in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Aug. 30, 2018, roughly 99.9 percent sure they’d never actually play an NFL game together.
Who could forget that epic duel between Danny Etling and Alex Tanney? Certainly not Jason McCourty, because he was forced to play in that fourth preseason game. Any 10-year vet playing that late in the preseason has to know he’s squarely on the chopping block, and there was McCourty, playing 17 snaps. The Patriots even worked him at safety, which he presumed to be a showcase for other teams.
He prepared himself for the worst.
“I told Dev at halftime, ‘I guess it was fun while it lasted,'” Jason said. “At that point, I was just worried about trying to put good football on tape. You don’t really know what’s going on at that point in the year.
“… It was, ‘Let’s just go out there and play football.’ This is the sport you grew up playing that you love. You get paid to play. So to complain because you’re in the game—and it’s preseason—I’d be the fool. But at the end of the day, I didn’t know what was going to happen beyond that point.”
Things worked out. The Patriots decided to hang onto Jason. And when Eric Rowe struggled, before landing on IR with a groin injury, Jason suddenly became a vital piston in the system. Lining up everywhere, he fit right in and finished with 70 tackles (54 solo), 10 pass breakups and one interception in 16 games (12 starts).
Devin, meanwhile, was Devin. He topped 80 tackles for the sixth season.
Most importantly, they were teammates again.
“Inseparable. Inseparable,” corner Jonathan Jones said. “And they feed off each other.”
Elsa/Getty Images
Because they cherish the time they get to spend together so much. And the time their families get to. The time spent off the field, their two families fusing as one, is as valuable to the McCourtys as anything on it. When Jason thinks back to the dad he never had, he doesn’t get sad or mad or resentful. He tries to be a better father for his three kids, just as Devin does for his two. Seeing their kids run all over the place, in the same city, added to the joy of this season, too.
The joy that became so infectious with this Patriots team. The joy that exploded the night New England upset Kansas City in the AFC Championship to catapult into the Super Bowl.
One video captured a “Welcome to the Sup-!” moment.
Another showed Jason telling Devin, “This is what I came here for!”:
New England Patriots @Patriots
“THIS IS WHAT I CAME HERE FOR.”
A little @McCourtyTwins + a little TB12 = a must watch. https://t.co/rPW1VX9Wuu
And yet another had Jason holding the Lamar Hunt trophy, saying, “I’m going to the Super Bowl, and I’m not a guest of Dev! I’ve got my own ticket!”
New England Patriots @Patriots
“I’m going to the Super Bowl, and I’m not a guest of Dev!”
@McCourtyTwins | #EverythingWeGot https://t.co/NsEJaCZvTm
Their personalities, clear in those videos and even clearer in person, are the easiest way by far to tell the two apart. Devin’s certainly, uh, louder than his brother. In the week leading up to the Super Bowl, Jason was told that Devin had said he gets on his nerves. Jason instantly polled teammates at a nearby table, asking, “Who’s more annoying, Jason or Devin?” Vet Nate Ebner looked over incredulously and said “Devin,” as if it’s stupid to even debate such a topic. (To which Jason added that his brother is “the most annoying person that we have on the team.”)
It’s clear both dearly missed getting on each other’s nerves.
Being around each other again, daily, brought the best out of them.
“Man, his free spirit sometimes—for the lack of better words—his ‘not giving a s–t’ attitude,” Jason said. “He pushes that on me with us being together. And I’m always that guy trying to dot every i and cross every t, and I push that on him. We just fed off one another all year.”
Quite a difference from the year earlier. But Jason doesn’t rail on the Browns. Hell, he even said that 2017 was “fun” because he was still employed at the end of the day. Rather, losing 16-of-16 made him a more “nitpicky” pro. He started to wonder if wearing the wrong shirt to a meeting was a reason he was losing. He analyzed every second of every day. “When you’re on a team that doesn’t win a lot, you try to do every single thing you possibly can do,” he said. And that starvation for one damn victory, Devin said, undoubtedly helped freshen up this Patriots dynasty.
It played right into the underdog mentality the quarterback was trying to establish.
And all roads led to that one fateful play in the third quarter.
Late in the first quarter, the Rams had lined up in the exact same formation and ran the exact same play, with Goff throwing incomplete to Robert Woods on a crossing route. So when the Rams ran the play again, the Patriots were too overzealous on the crosser. Lined up in Quarters coverage, with four DBs responsible for a fourth of the field each, both Devin McCourty and Jonathan Jones bit hard on Woods underneath, freeing up Cooks deep.
The team that never screws up screwed up. Bad.
Yet there was Jason, starving for this exact moment.
Said Jones, “I love this team. Guys stepping up for each other. Making plays. That was a big play in the game. Turned the game.”
Thinking back to his vantage point as the fourth DB on that play, Gilmore used the same three words his head coach repeated at the podium: “Oh my God.” Crisis was averted. “That’s why he’s here,” Gilmore said. A Rams touchdown there instantly changes the complexion of the Super Bowl. Maybe Goff is no longer a deer in the headlights. Maybe Sean McVay rediscovers his mojo. Instead, Goff was sacked the very next play and the Rams settled for a field goal.
Down on the field, celebrating, the memories resurfaced. Of Pop Warner. Of Cleveland. Jason made a point to share a moment with fellow ex-Brown Danny Shelton immediately so both could grasp how far they’ve come. Then, the McCourty family raided the field. Phyllis was in her half-Jason, half-Devin, home-stitched jersey.
Tears in her eyes, she stuffed confetti into her bag to keep forever and did snow angels on the turf with her grandkids.
The twins themselves shared a moment talking about their aunt, who just passed away a month ago. They said they know she’s watching down.
Then, with the party already raging in the Patriots locker room, the McCourtys finally appeared.
Devin was loud, shouting to no one in particular.
Jason was quiet, hopping up and down as “God’s Plan” played. He reached into his locker, retrieved his cell phone, opened it up and scrolled at a rapid rate. All he saw was a constant stream of blue dots, denoting what felt like an infinite number of unread messages.
As the locker room began to clear out, the Patriots’ owner roamed player to player. Robert Kraft gave Gilmore a hug and then worked his way over to the McCourtys with a smile on his face.
“Jason,” he said, “They made a good trade.”
“You won’t hear me complaining!” Jason answered, shaking his hand.
With that, Kraft told Jason that his excitement gave perspective to the entire team. His “spontaneity,” his “happiness,” was contagious.
“And,” Kraft continued, “we’re not letting you guys retire.”
Leading up to Super Bowl Sunday, that was the buzz. Devin hinted at retiring, and NFL Network reported that both were considering hanging ’em up. Neither hinted at a decision one way or another immediately after the win.
If this was it, it’s not a bad way to go out. Both McCourtys played a huge role in confusing Goff like he’s never been confused before. As Devin noted afterward, the Patriots were confident that if their healthy mix of zone coverages on the back end and blitzes from all angles up front threw off scout team QB Brian Hoyer, they would rattle Goff.
And they were right. Goff had a 57.9 passer rating.
So Kraft wasn’t the only one thrilled for Jason.
Of course, Devin didn’t hold back. He believed every player on the team wanted to win this for his brother.
“I’m ecstatic,” Devin said. “That guy humbly came here, openly said, ‘I’m willing to accept any role you have for me. I just want to be a part of a team.’ … He’s been that Patriot guy, he’s been that all year. He’s been good inspiration and motivation since we’ve been down here in Atlanta.”
The moments after his first Super Bowl—a beautiful, punch-in-the-face of a TKO, straight from the 1970s—were “surreal” to Jason.
One memory, on the spot, did enter his mind. Jason remembered, vividly, greeting his brother at Lucas Oil Stadium, in February 2012, after Eli Manning and the Giants had stunned the Patriots. The entire McCourty family was there to greet and console Devin, and one of the first things Devin said hit his brother particularly hard: “I’d rather not get here than to get here and lose.”
Sadly, that’s the vicious truth with these games.
A loss to the Rams might have left deeper scars than any 0-fer in Cleveland did. Getting so close to hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, and failing, might’ve stuck with both Jason and Devin forever.
They don’t have to worry about that, though. With one manic close on the ball, Jason made sure of it.
As Sunday blurred into Monday, the music in the Patriots locker room finally faded. The locker room emptied, and out the door went Jason and Devin in their “Mama We Made It” shirts. Teammates called their names from afar because it was time to party.
And, no, neither McCourty planned on sleeping anytime soon.
Tyler Dunne covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @TyDunne.
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