Being a college football player in your early 20s is difficult enough. Having to meet one of the greatest football minds in the history of the game for a chance to play for him? That has to be nerve-wracking. That interaction from a pre-draft meeting is still at the forefront of Devin McCourty’s brain, even 10 years later.
The Athletic’s Jeff Howe published a story sharing some of the best Bill Belichick memories from current and former players and coaches on the 20th anniversary of the trade that brought him to New England.
“Mine was in college when he sat down with me, question after question, and the dude gave me no response, no anything. ‘What could you do better?’ I answered it,” McCourty told Howe. “You’re trying to impress, so I would give this long answer trying to hit everything I knew about the defense, and he would just say, ‘OK,’ and watch the next play. We did it for like 45 minutes to an hour. You can imagine going through a whole game in an hour, and you think you’re giving this coach what you think is your best stuff. My agent called me, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how it went, but I doubt I’m a Patriot.’ Then you find out he thought it was a really good interview. To me, that’s him – consistency, getting the same thing no matter what, and I learned that as soon as I got here.”
Belichick’s famous cold, short demeanor was on full display. It’s that mentality, along with a great owner and quarterback, that has earned him six Super Bowls as a head coach.
Three Super Bowls and two Pro-Bowls in 10 years have proved that Belichick was right again when selecting the Rutgers product with the 27th overall pick in 2010.
McCourty is set to become a free agent at the start of the new league year and has stated he has no plans to retire. His Patriots’ legacy could continue or he could be starting fresh in a new home.
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