Devin McCourty, New England Patriots Defensive Back

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There's a lot to listen to, so get started and download the free Odyssey app today. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, the Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. It is a football Friday on the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. We'll head out to the guest line right now and welcome in a three-time Super Bowl champion who is in his bye week with the Patriots. The Pats sitting at 5 and 4 coming out of the bye. They will have the Jets. You can also see Devin McCourty this weekend during his bye week on CBS Sports Network and CBS.

He's going to be on that other pregame show at 9 a.m. Eastern on CBS Sports Network and then the NFL Today at noon Eastern on CBS and Paramount Plus. Devin McCourty, always appreciate the time. Congratulations on the new opportunity and how you been? I'm good, man. How you guys doing? Well, I'm doing fantastic. Congratulations on this opportunity during the bye week with CBS Sports Network and CBS.

How'd it come together? Just, you know, obviously free time and I live in New Jersey, so back visiting my brother's family as he, you know, comes back from Germany. So, from the broadcast, Blue Camp just made some pretty cool connections and, you know, Drew reached out to me over at CBS and said, would you want to come in? I was like, sure. I'm trying to see if I can be better than Jay Mac on TV, so we'll see Sunday.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I think this may be a little jealousy. Your brother's on Good Morning Football now and you want to dip your toes in the waters and show him that, hey, you're still the better McCourty.

Yeah, just trying to create some competition. You know, I'm trying to help him get better. You can't get better without competition.

I want people to say how much better I did to him and, you know, he's already been at the job for a few months now. So, I see this announcement and I start to think, OK, Devin McCourty's been in the league for a long time. Maybe this is going to be his final year in the NFL and he's setting up his next career.

Is that a fair assessment and assumption? No, I think right now it's just taking advantage of something that I got to do last offseason. I think one of the biggest things coming away from that broadcast, Blue Camp, that they told us was you just got to keep getting reps. You know, whatever it is you do.

You know, we did a podcast for four years and then I think with what Jay has going on now, it was too hard to do the podcast. So, just another opportunity to go out there and do something and see if you're good at it. You know, you see so many guys like Cam Jordan and, you know, all those guys, Mark Ingram doing their own podcast, seeing Sherman now.

So, just trying to continue to get reps at that and see if I can be halfway decent at it. Devin McCourty here with us. You guys are sitting at five and four in your bye week. How would you kind of recap the first half of the season? We just got to keep working, man.

I think every team that's been in a bye over the last, you know, I'll call it two to three weeks, probably are saying the same thing. You know, how can we do the things that we've done well? How can we continue to do them?

How can we do some of the things we haven't done well better? And I think we're in that same situation. You know, I think all the guys are working hard. Obviously, it feels good to get a win before the bye week. But I think last year we talked about, you know, looking back at that season, coming out of the bye, we played the Colts, we lose and, you know, I don't think we ever could get back to playing good football to end the season. And I think that's the important part, you know, getting a bye week at this time. Once we go back, you know, we're talking about playing good football around the Thanksgiving time. That's really when the season takes off and the good teams start playing good football. And I think that'll be something we try to focus on. So you feel like the best is still yet to come for this group?

Man, I sure hope so. You know, I think I remember, you know, all my years, Bill would always remind us, especially at this point in the season, five and four, whether we've been, you know, six and two, like whatever it is, he always reminds us, you know, five wins, seven wins, eight wins won't get you what you want. So it's important to continue to play good football and continue to win. And I think that's what the focus is.

And, you know, in order to do that, we've got to play our best ball going down the stretch. Devin McCourty here with us on the Zach Gelb show. For so many years, the identity nationally of this group was Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. As you know, Brady hasn't been with the team now for three seasons. How would you kind of describe, since you've been there for so long, the identity of this team in 2022? Yeah, I think always the identity, the identity of any team, you know, goes year by year. You can't hang on to what you did the year before or a few years ago.

Your identity has to be what you are, you know, at that point in time. I think that's what we're building. You know, we've played some good games. I think when we don't turn the ball over, we've been highly successful, winning games, playing good defense, getting the ball to our skill guys like Jacoby, Mondries, come on strong. So I think that's the identity we're building, being able to run the football, being able to stop the run, things that this team has been built on for years. We're starting to build that. You know, I think it's important, you know, in this league and, you know, in any sport like football, you can't build anything on one or two guys.

That's because we're both on a team, and I think that's what we're starting to do. Who is Mac Jones as a quarterback? How would you describe him to maybe someone that isn't a believer in Mac Jones? I wouldn't. You know, I think for me, I'll never act like I'm a quarterback whisperer or someone that can tell you what this guy's style is and what he would have meant. Like, that's not my role.

I'll tell you this. He's a hardworking kid. He's only a year or two. Has shown tremendous leadership, comes in every day, puts his head down, continues to work, and I think the cool thing about, you know, watching young guys is there's so much pressure in that position just to watch them having fun and enjoying the experience and the journey with the guys, and I think I've seen him take steps forward in doing that and not worrying so much about the result, but just continuing to get better. I think that's what he's doing, and I think that's the only thing we can ask for every guy in that locker room to come in and put their head down and just work. And that's what Mac's been doing, and, you know, I think obviously playing quarterback in this league, playing quarterback for the Patriots, you know, he's always going to be talked about good or bad or whatever it is.

And I think it's just important for him to just continue to work on the things that all the coaches tell him and to focus on the guys in the locker room and not the noise outside. Is it at all weird to have Matt Patricia back and on the offensive side of the ball after all those years that you guys had a good connection and relationship on the defensive side of the ball? It was at first, now at this time it doesn't, it feels like that's where he belongs, and it's been a fun journey, you know, obviously I've spent a lot of time with Matty P talking defense and growing up really in that system when he, you know, was really as our coordinator. So it's been a lot of fun talking trash all throughout training camp and competing, and, you know, I think our relationship is, you know, even more than just him being on offense and me on defense, you know, just being able to talk ball and different things like that. So it's been fun, I think, for him to use his expertise and coaching on the other side and, you know, help those guys out.

You've had a defensive player the year before on your defense in New England going back to when Stephon Gilmore won the award a few years ago. It's looking like Judon could do that this year. How about what Matthew Judon's given this team? Yeah, I mean, I say, you know, after every game I think one of the best parts of Jude is how hard he works, you know, Judon comes in extra, you know, on the bike doing different things in the weight room. And I think all our young guys get to come in and see our best defensive player just outworking everybody, always doing something to be better. And I think that's the best part about his leadership and just him as a player, you know, obviously not a guy that was probably highly recruited, you know, out of Grand Valley State. And he's really had to work hard and prove himself each year. And I think it's been cool to see him, you know, come obviously to our team last year, have a strong season last year, but to just pick up kind of where he left off and continue to build on, you know, just proving himself and doing all the hard things and little things to help the football team win. I think it's been really cool. And I know that's his focus, how we can win more games. He's not focused on any accolades or things like that.

And I think that's why he's fit in so well. I really been, you know, obviously our best player defensively. You can watch Devin McCourty this weekend on Sunday on that other pregame show, 9 a.m. Eastern on CBS Sports Network, also the NFL Today at noon Eastern on Sunday on CBS and Paramount Plus. Let me throw you a few non-patriot questions to kind of get you ready for this weekend because they're not going to hold back when you get on that set. How about Jeff Saturday getting the job at Indianapolis as the interim head coach? What did you make of that? How did you react to it as a player? Well, I mean, I think like everybody else, it was surprising.

He didn't know if it was real at first. You know, I'm excited to kind of get in and talk about that in more depth on Sunday. But I think, you know, I think I've been pretty vocal about just opportunities for different people in this league. And, you know, watching coaches coach from all time but not get, he said, coaching opportunities, especially minorities, you know, I think that's been the challenge. And I think when you see Jeff Saturday, who's obviously a great player, you know, I don't know him well, but, you know, seemed like a great leader in Indiana, Peyton Manning, putting together so many of those great teams, but just no experience in being able to get that job. You know, I think not even talking about will he do well or will he do bad, just the opportunity to get that job, I think, you know, I think it's so tough for other candidates to get that opportunity and for him to kind of just jump the line. It was different to see and, you know, I think very interesting and, you know, obviously they'll have a big game Sunday with, you know, playing the Raiders and how all of that works out.

There'll be a lot of eyes on that. And really anxious to see how it unfolds for the rest of the season. You mentioned their opponent, the Raiders. Josh McDaniel's not off to a good start as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. Where's your belief level that Josh will eventually be able to turn that chip around?

Yeah, I think, you know, with him and Dave Zeidler, you know, two guys that were in New England, I got to know pretty well. I think they have a vision. I think they'll get it going. I think they'll have a really big week this week. You know, like I said, just talking about playing the Colts and now you lose Darren Waller, you lose Renthrow to I.R. And I think, you know, sometimes that can be a bright spot for a team as far as now there's no more looking to seeing when this guy's going to come back, looking to see like when someone's going to save the season. It's up to you now.

Your back's against the wall. And I think they'll probably use that and go out there and try to play a good game and get a big win Sunday to kind of hopefully get the ball rolling for them. But hopefully not rolling enough that they're not playing great when we play them.

So we'll see how it all works out. Talking about some teams that you'll be playing, you've already played them this year and you'll see the Jets coming out of the bye. Who's impressed you more this year, the Jets or the Dolphins?

I think both. I would say really the whole division. I think for years that I've been in this division, people have always talked about the division not being good or this team or that team.

I think you look up now, it's one of the best divisions in football. I think that makes it competitive. It makes it exciting. But it also lets you know you're going to have a challenge each time you play these teams. And obviously playing the Jets two weeks ago and then having to play them again next week, I'm sure they'll be ready to go. We've got a big win on the road there. So I think they'll try to return a favor and I think they're playing good ball. Obviously a big win against Buffalo now. They're on the bye as well. Both teams I think will be rested and hungry to kind of get their season rolling for the back half of the season. And last thing I'll ask you, Devin McCourty, Seahawks and Bucks, I can't wait for that matchup in Germany. For Tampa Bay, they've been struggling but they should still be able to win that NFC South. How dangerous can Brady and the Bucks be this year even after the slow start? Yeah, no one wants to play 12.

Nobody wants to play TV 12. I don't care if they're rolling or not rolling, if it looks bad, if guys are hurt. When you play against him, you know, you got to bring your best for all four quarters. And I think you saw that last week with the come-from-behind win late in the game.

Just, I mean, always impressive just how focused he is and how his best moments come when the team needs it the most. So I'm excited to see that game. You know, obviously, you know, during the season when some of these international games go on early in the morning, you're kind of locked in on what you're doing.

You don't get to watch them or check it out. And, you know, between traveling to the studio, I'll be able to sit there and watch the game with other guys. You know, you talk about Nate Bross and the Bill Cowher and Boomer, Phil Sams, like I'll get to learn a lot from them just watching the game. So I'm excited to see that and hear somebody, even the quarterback kind of expertise watching that game.

Well, good luck this upcoming weekend. The other pregame show at 9 a.m. Eastern on CBS Sports Network and then the NFL Today, which everyone knows is on CBS and Paramount Plus at 12 p.m. Eastern. He is going to be a media superstar and he's been a star for the Patriots for a bunch of years, a three-time Super Bowl champion.

He is Devin McCourty. D-Mac, always appreciate your time. No, I appreciate it, man. Good catching up.

Get started and download the free Odyssey app today. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season two, The Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app, your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown and millions of podcasts on demand. Best of all, you can completely customize your listening experience. Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams, pause or rewind your local sports and news and add shows to your queue to catch up later. There's a lot to listen to. So get started and download the free Odyssey app today.