Beyond the Field: The Mental Fortitude Behind Football ft. Super Bowl Champion Devin McCourty

Man, I'm going to shock the world. My goal was to be a first or second round pick. And I would always say that to them. And they would be like, this guy. I know what you're talking about. Always talking. And when I did it, I was just like, man, I wanted to do something like this. And I did it. I finally arrived. I'm going to get respect. People know. And my first time getting to New England, and I do the introductory press conference, first question is, are you aware that you're an unpopular pick? people feel like they drafted a special teams player in the first round that's crazy and that right there was like a reminder of yo you didn't make anything like no one thinks any no one thinks you're great now like that same little 17 year old that was doubted like now he's just 23 or 24 and that same doubt is there and that that sprung my career in the nfl of going to the pro bowl and being second team all pro as a rookie um and the coolest thing was i had a strengthening addition coach which for me was an unbelievable honor he coached the cowboys in the 90s when they won their super bowls part of the patriots when they won their super bowls in the early 2000s and when i got voted to the pro bowl as a rookie he comes up to me and he hated rookies he would be so mean to rookies and he was like you know i've had one other rookie pro bowler he said you know who that is I'm like, nah. He was like Emmett Smith. And that moment for me was like, all right, like don't, don't ever get off this course. Whatever you're doing that got you here, stay on this to continue to move forward because people notice it and it's working. what is going on we're here in nashville with pack we got devin mccourty in the building we're going to talk a little bit of devin's career his current path now in in broadcast and media and every all the work that he's doing in that space philanthropy and his involvement with pack as an organization obviously we know pack is doing some amazing work not only for athletes, but, you know, the community in general and being able to provide an opportunity for these athletes to find an identity outside of sports, right? I think that's been a common theme amongst a lot of the conversations that we've had. And I think it's a problem, right? Like hearing what happens to guys outside, you know, whether it's football, baseball, basketball, you know, whether you make it to the pro level, it's high school kids, right? Like so many kids, athletes, adults, whatever it may be, have some sort of identity crisis after the fact. So the work that PAC does, I think, is extremely impactful, and we'll definitely touch on that. But before we do, I want to tell your story from day one and tell us a little bit about how football became a part of your life and just the progression into your career. Yeah, man, it's a journey. I think I had to learn that along the way of there's no exact destination that you get to that you turn around and you go man i'm here like it's over like it's it's always just a journey and uh you know for for me growing up you know obviously everyone knows i have a twin brother we both got to play in the nfl um but like that wasn't we weren't those young kids that when we played like obviously we were good in our area where we were from people knew that but like as soon as we got into high school, we were like five, seven ish, 115 pounds. Like our high school coach still says that when we walked through the doors, like, so I never thought those guys were playing NFL. Like that wasn't really everybody's thought. Like back home where I was from, everybody thought that like, we always played sports. Like they always like, man, those kids going to be special. But when you actually got to it, it just didn't seem like that. And, um, we always try to, I think now I, especially I try to look at my journey and different things that happened and see like what was the cause and effect of that and uh for us we lost our father when we were young we were about three years old or turning three when we lost our father and I think a lot of times you hear that right away I think people think of just being a statistic or how hard it is to have a single mom and I look at that now and I'm like there was a drive in me in sports because like I had a connection because everyone I would run into would be like man your last name's McCourty you wouldn't happen to be related to cocky McCourty and I was so young I was like man who the hell is cocky McCourty and they're like oh Calvin I was like oh that was my dad he just passed when I was young and they're like man your dad in basketball he would walk outside and there would be a fence he'll take one step and jump over the fence and I always look back and I'm like you don't know if all that stuff's true because the story gets better year after year but like hearing that and not getting to actually know my father i knew he loved basketball i knew he loved sports so when i got into sports i always felt like that was our connection like it was always sports so when you get to go through and i go to high school and i go to st joel's uh a catholic high school in new jersey and new jersey's kind of known for these like big catholic high schools and the rivalries and like that's all right this is it like we're gonna go here i'm earn a full scholarship, go there, strictly freshman football. They're like, you guys are small. My brother wanted to play running back, didn't really get the ball as freshman. Fast forward, sophomore year, still small again, about 135 pounds, but start three games on varsity. So I'm like, oh, here I am. Like, they thought I was too small. I would ride, play our rival. Back in the day, if you were from the Jersey, tri-state area, you hear the name Brian Toll. he's one of those dudes that in high school he was like one of the guys went to the all-american game played offense and defense he runs me over in the game they blow us out he runs me over like he gains speed as he runs me over last game i played on varsity as a sophomore wow and you know my high school career didn't get ranked top 100 in the state wasn't like this like big time player and my brother actually you know he ended up playing running back he had a game one time where He had three carries, three touchdowns, 130-something yards. Oh, God damn. And when we left, he led the school in yards per carry. Like, he was pretty damn good in high school. And Rutgers, our head coach was Greg Shiano at the time. He had twin boys who were like, at that time, maybe six or seven. And he's recruiting us. And Jay gets an offer in October. So now we're in December. We're going on a visit. Only Jay has an offer at this point. So when we go on this visit, he has an offer to Kent State, Rutgers, and Boston College. Boston College comes to our house. They do the in-home visit. Tom O'Brien is probably the first person that put a huge chip on my shoulder. When Boston College offered my brother, I understood. They weren't the first school to offer him and not offer me. And he came and did the in-house visit. And when he came, they were like, hey, man, we don't really we don't need you in that meeting. And we grew up. Oh, wow. We when we moved out of our apartment, we thought we made it. We moved to and we owned our trailer. So we lived in a mobile home. So like it was small. I get what you watch in TV shows is like what they call a trailer. We had a double wide. And when they had that meeting, you know, our living rooms here on the other side of that wall is our bedroom. So I'm in the bedroom and I hear the voices as they're having that meeting. And you can imagine as a 17 year old kid. And when you grow up as a twin, you're the same. Everything you do, your mom buys you the same like ever. And it was like the first time in our life where people were like, no, y'all are different. And you know what? He's good and you're not. And for me, that just created this huge chip. And we go down to Rutgers. We're on this official. We're on this visit. the last day Sunday before we leave they offer me so now I had my first division back then it was called 1A 1A offer to Rutgers and I have another offer to New Hampshire that we both have so I get home Sunday and I tell my mom it's not real they don't really want me they want Jay I don't want to go there and my mom's like hey sometimes that's how it works out like you don't always get to pick how or why but if you get an opportunity that's your opportunity to show why and monday morning i call coach hey i'm coming i'm committing to school and jay's going to boston college this next weekend so he goes and he does his visit and we found out now two years ago of When I made that call, it was actually Monday night. I made that call. Coach Chiano calls the coach that recruited us on staff, Darren Rizzi, and basically he's cursing them out because the only reason they offered me is because I found this out later. My mom told Chiano, the only way you get Jason is if you offer both. They're a package deal. No way. Never wanted my mom to do that. Of course not. She did that. And you found that out two years ago? I found that out two years ago. My brother called a game for the Saints, and Darren Rizzi was their special teams coach. They went out to dinner, and he was telling them how the head coach called them, cursing them out like, you got the wrong brother. That's not the one we wanted. And my brother ended up committing the next weekend after he went on his visit. So we both ended up going to Rutgers. But there was no plan for me to actually be a part of it. play and do like again if you're into sports and you know sports we go there he's number 25 i'm number 39 right he's a third string corner i'm the eighth seventh or eighth string safety like i'm in the back of the room and i felt that like as soon as i got there i was like oh okay like i'm not supposed to really be here training camp they would have two two groups going at once i'll be on that end where nobody's watching you don't watch the film of that so like that you know the the Boston college getting a Rutgers like that built up for me of. All right. Like it's time to go. Like I'm going to prove. So winter breaks, summer breaks, like we would go home for a weekend and we go right back to school and I would work out, I would train and I get drafted. You know, I ended up again, we're going to be honest here. I ended up being better than my brother. So Shannon, Shannon recruit is not your thing. Cause you didn't figure that out. I was better than him at Rutgers. So he was a six round draft pick in 09, 2010. I was a first round draft pick. So like we talk about that, I made it moment. I'm like, man, and I used to tell my brother and his now wife when they were dating in college, I was just like, man, I'm gonna shock the world. Like my goal was to be a first or second round pick. And I would always say that to them and they would be like, this guy. And always talking. And when I did it, I was just like, man, like I wanted to do something like this and I did it. Like, I finally arrived. I'm going to get respect. People know. And my first time getting to New England, and I do the introductory press conference, first question is, are you aware that you're an unpopular pick? People feel like they drafted a special teams player in the first round. That's crazy. And that right there was like a reminder of, yo, you didn't make anything. Like, no one thinks you're great now. That same little 17-year-old that was doubted, now he's just 23 or 24, and that same doubt is there. And that sprung my career in the NFL of going to the Pro Bowl and being second-team All-Pro as a rookie. And the coolest thing was I had a strength and conditioning coach, which for me was an unbelievable honor. He coached the Cowboys in the 90s when they won their Super Bowls, part of the Patriots when they won their Super Bowls in the early 2000s. And when I got voted to the Pro Bowl as a rookie, he comes up to me and he hated rookies. He would be so mean to rookies. And he was like, you know, name was Mike Woise. He was like, you know, I've had one other rookie Pro Bowler. He said, you know who that is? I'm like, nah. He was like Emmitt Smith. If you stay on that path, like that's what's the path you're going on. I was a Cowboys fan. I was a huge Emmitt Smith fan growing up. And that moment for me was like, all right, like, don't ever get off this course. Whatever you're doing that got you here, stay on this to continue to move forward because people notice it and it's working. And, you know, the rest is history of what I was able to do there in New England, playing with, you know, grades being coached by the greatest of all time, playing with Tom. um but like the thing that i loved about my time in the wing was i really felt like the person and leader i was grew up there like i was a captain one other time my senior year in college was the only other time like i was a captain of a team like even in high school we had reps i was a rep but i was never a captain right and becoming a captain in college and then jumping into the nfl and being a captain 12 out of my 13 years was an unbelievable honor and like the younger version of me never saw myself as that um and that's what kind of what i'm like most proud of what i think about my journey and what i developed into absolutely just like that chip on your shoulder throughout the whole lifetime of your career never went away doubt then that get to the next level of proof that people wrong there but you get to the next chapter and it's like there's still doubt out there and then it's chip chip on your shoulder again and then you know you come into the nfl they're like who's this special teams guy we got and you go and you make a pro bowl like talk about just proving everyone wrong at all times but i want i want to go back to you know what happened with your father right you hear a lot about like the importance of having like a father figure in your life did you have someone you know through the course of your life that represented themselves as a father figure i i come from a single mom as well and i always look at my mom as like that person right because works two jobs like provided for me and my brothers level of sacrifice that she's made will always be inspiring to me but i'm curious to hear from you like how is that like being raised by a single mom and and having not necessarily like a true father figure in your life yeah man my uh my wife always gets not gets on me but she reminds me of like my story is not the norm so again i believe everything happens for a reason and like having a twin saved me and we saved each other because yeah like when you lose your father so young it's a gift and a curse because you don't have memories you don't have like lessons learned and you don't know that you don't have it right so you go through life and you just live and i was just like you my mom was my rock like she was whatever you needed she did she was a pitbull like she was hard on you like she was a disciplinarian like smack you do whatever she needed to do right nowadays you can't do that kind of stuff probably but like she raised i had an older brother i have an older brother was 15 years older okay she raised three boys solo so like she understood i gotta make sure they're in line before they're bigger than me yeah and that like there was no holes ball what she would do to make sure so i did so me and my brother did the opposite of what was around us so you know we had different male figures that none of them did or presented themselves as the things that i wanted out of life at a young age i kind of realized that So it was like, okay, opposite. All right, they do this that way. I'm not doing that. All right. That's what they decide to do. I'm not doing that. So like what it created was kind of wild and big dreams of, man, like, I don't want to, I don't want to just get a job and go to work every day. Like, why can't I go to school and play football? Why can't? So a lot of that was like, why not? And I still remember in high school, our accountant teacher going over the odds of making it. and like everybody walking out of that, like that classroom being like, damn. And I remember like me and my brother looking at each other and was like damn he said 3 like shit why can we be a part of the 3 And still it was like a far dream right but i think that mentality that we had growing up of seeing like uncles and cousins on the corner and doing different things and then deciding like you know uncle that was selling drugs that uncle that was using drugs like my older brother went into the army uh right out of high school because he didn't like school so like he decided to go the path of the army like all of those things i was was like, man, that's not me. I don't want to do that. So I think that let us know that I don't have to see what I want to do. I can see this and know that I don't want to do that. And I can know, even though there's no plan or path or guy I can strictly follow, I'm okay jumping out and doing it. So when we heard that 3%, I think our mind from a young age was already wrapped around, shit that three percent sound better than zero percent so let's go like let's get in that's why i said the gift of having that twin was we pushed each other if i started going this way he grabbed me nah we're not doing that and we're so hard on each other we'll challenge each other and everything whether it's sports whether it's fatherhood whether it's being a husband like we'll always challenge each other to make sure we stay sharp because there's that kind of like true love and bomb that like you know as much as i might hate this person and what they're saying to me i know deep down they want the best for me yeah no that's a damn fact i'm i'm like thinking of me and my brothers like through that whole process and it's like yeah my mom was my rock but like there's a deeper yeah level of relationship as close if you do have that father figure and it's not that you didn't want it right we both wanted it we're both dads now and we like i feel that when i'm with my kids but i also know like without that it forced us to lean on each other a lot oh yeah and it's impacted us and made our relationship what it is now you guys went through that challenge together you know so like now it's like we're in this together so we're going to get out of this together and you also bring up something that i think is interesting right like people talk about you can learn what to do right and there's value in learning you know the right things to do but there's a ton of value of learning the things not to do right and like this is the type of person i don't want to be might not be ideal but like you could work with exactly exactly and you learn from okay well at least i know what i don't want to do exactly right so at least you're boom you're checking off those boxes get that out and now it's like all right now i've shrunk my my level of vision into all right this is the path i'm going to go that three percent really might feel like 80 to you you know it's like yeah to you that three percent feels tiny but to me that three percent is just enough of the percent that allows me to believe that i can do it yep hell yeah no doubt so uh now you know you're in your career right you you had that extremely successful nfl career your brother as well got to finish your career with with him but talk to me a little bit about what that was like like being able like at the final chapter of your career being able to share that with your brother yeah man i had finished year i was in finishing year eight so i'm in year nine he's going in year 10 so it had been flirted with a couple times of when I first was a free agent of possibly going down to Tennessee when he was in Tennessee had conversations with them when I was a free agent then that was 2015 season then the trade deadline of that year my coach came up to me like man there's a rumor that like we might trade to get your brother I'm like damn don't say that don't do that like now you know what I mean if you're gonna say it you gotta tell me when it's at the goal line right and fast forward now we get to 2018 like we've given up on that thought like even the next times that we were free agents it wasn't like man like we gotta try to it was just um and our careers are already like you gotta go make your money i gotta make money we gotta do what's best and 2007 going into 2017 season Tennessee again my brother loves Nashville loves the Titans organization and they draft him gave him a shot Tennessee Tennessee screwed him and he went into the last year of his deal supposed to make a certain amount of money our agent reached out was like hey we know Jay's on the books for X amount of money is there something we could do what are you guys thinking oh we want him he's gonna be here a week and a half before the draft they're like hey we need you to take a pay cut we He needs you to go from seven mil down to 1.7. And you're going to be our fifth corner. So you're going to have to fight to make the team. So he was like, all right, so I started this year. You're going to bump me to five. I'm going to be in year 10. And you're going to bring in all young guys. You're going to cut me at the end of training camp. So no, like, just cut me now. And I've always hated that story because, like, when it hits, Jason McCourty released because he refuses to take a pay cut with none of the actual details of he got he he told him to cut me because they said I'm going to basically cut you later right exactly that's the way the game is but so he decides like all right I'm in limbo now once you get released a week before the draft nobody nobody signs you because they want to go through the draft right so then Cleveland comes and they're like hey we want to give you a two-year deal and I'm like ah my boy don't go don't go to Cleveland don't go over there everybody knows he was like what do you want me to do i got three kids they need we need to find a school we need to find a place to live like i can't keep waiting i'm like bro i hear all that yeah don't go to cleveland you'll figure it out signs of cleveland and again rough time has his third child she has every food allergy known to man new city him and his wife are going through it just a tough year off the field on the field he's feeling healthy has a heck of a year on the field end of the year they go 0-16 0-16 don't win a game i go bro can't go back whatever you need to do and i'm more of the outspoken one he's more the reserve one usually and he does a interview at the end of the year and he's like we're not an 0-16 team everybody keeps talking about the talent it doesn't it's not the talent it starts at the top we're bad at the top ownership uh exec and i was like yes bro that will get you cut that's what you need to do and probably like maybe a month and a month and a half later he gets the call from the gm hey we appreciate you you're you're a true professional the way you came to work but we gotta let you go we're gonna release you and he he called facetimes me and tells me that And I'm like, all right, hold on. Like, this is the moment. Yeah, exactly. So I text Brian Flores, B-Flo at the time, was our defensive coordinator, going into the 2018 season. I'm like, hey, Jay's about to get released. Like, we got to get on. And we were missing that veteran kind of player the year before when we lost to the Eagles in the Super Bowl. And he's like, all right, let me. I said, yo, should I just talk to Bill Belichick? And he's like, yeah. So I text Bill, hey Bill, Jay's going to get released. Two McCourty's are better than one. No response. 45 minutes to an hour go by. I go, shit, I guess two McCourty's ain't better than one. Bill calls me and he goes, the transaction, they didn't put it through yet. The news just broke. We called down there. We're just going to trade for him since he has a year left on his deal. We're going to trade for him. so he's going to be on the Patriots so I FaceTime him I'm like yo he's like what's up I was like hey welcome to the team and he's like bro what the hell are you talking about nobody's talked to him our agent doesn't know nobody knows I'm like bro we're about to trade for you he's like bro shut up I'm like welcome to the team we're trading for you his wife's in the background like that's bullshit we don't want to get traded we want to negotiate our contracts and I loved it Because I was like, this is the genius of Bill who knew he played well the year before, but was like, we're going to get him on this deal. True. And we get him. And I mean, honestly, the best three years of my career, we win the Super Bowl year one. Mom has one game to go to all year. When we win a Super Bowl against the Rams in Atlanta, my mom's on the field doing angels and confetti. At that time, I had two of my three kids. He had all three of his kids. We did the NFL Network set after the game with, you know, his youngest daughter, my oldest daughter, holding him on the set with us. It was just like an unbelievable time. Wow. Led into what we ended up doing later in life. We started our podcast in 2018 when he came, double coverage with the McCourty twins. So, like, everything kind of took off for us with that. And it was just awesome. Like every Friday we'd go to each other's house. We'd carpool to the game. Like we were just living the 10 year old kids who played football, who used to go outside before games and would go over our plays. We'd throw to each other. We'd be doing tall sweeps, going over our plays. Like those kids got to do that at the highest level and won a championship. I mean, 2018 was just a very special year. Yeah, you can't even like write that story. It is insane. At all. obviously was in heaven and loved every minute of it yeah like to be to be in that we took 30 people to the super bowl that year like usually usually the super bowl like you wanna we ain't supposed to say this but you want to get your tickets you want to try to sell some of those tickets and we go and i'm like now this is my fifth super bowl appearance so i'm like jay this is how we gonna do it he's like nah bro whoever want to go they can go i go hey man like that ain't how this work like whoever want to go we're gonna lose a lot of money yeah and like it was so cool because i was like you know what you're right like this is a moment in time that's how you man we have friends like family friends like college buddies high school buddies all went out to the game which was i mean unbelievable yeah that's sick that's sick you brought up uh b flow i'm actually curious to hear you know your perspective on b flow he's obviously had um he got his head coaching stint you know with Miami obviously those things didn't work out there and there's a lot of dynamics I guess you could say um during his era there but like what's your perspective on him like if you you got to be with him he's has mixed reputations out there in the league but would love to hear what your kind of perspective is on yeah man I'm I'm huge on like who you present yourself to me and who I see you from whatever amount of time I get to spend with you I'm holding you to that And for me, like we talked about father figures and different people growing up. I love being around Flo because I saw the version of what I wanted to become in life someday. Like I've spent Thanksgiving at Flo's house and Flo has two. He has twin brothers and I've met his twin brothers. And he has a young, his youngest brother who I met who, uh, who, uh, is on the spectrum. And I got to know him. And every time I was, I would talk to Flo, he'd be like, yo, Chris is still talking about you. of just hanging out with his brother Chris and his wife Jenny of having players in that space and living that and Flo's not much older than me and for me it was just all right man here's a minority guy in coaching with a wife and kids family oriented doing it and we had we had a really like special relationship from the standpoint of I was a corner and I got moved to safety and And he was doing special teams, and he came over to defense, and he was a safety. And our group was just special when he coached us. We had veteran players, Pat Chung, Deron Harmon, myself, and we all got along well. And Flo changed some of the ways we did things. We only met as a unit, no individual meetings. He was big on, if I talk to you, I want everybody to hear what I'm saying so nothing gets changed. This person said that. I want everyone to know what your role is, what your role is, and what we expect. So if I got to pull you out, everybody knows because we know what the expectation and I absolutely love that. I think that's what, especially a team sport, like when you're in a competitive room where we're all fighting for two or three spots on the field, I don't want when you meet with so-and-so to be like, hey man, like you should got to do this and then you should be playing. But no, like let's all be open and honest. So I love that. And that's the person that like I got to see when my contract was expiring uh off my rookie deal i remember flo called me and was like hey man like i just want to meet up like it's setting in in like two weeks you might be on another team and like i might never coach you again and we won't have this now and i was like yeah man and he was like do you want to meet somewhere else because i know i was like nah man like i was there five years like i'm still on the contract in two more weeks i'm coming into the building and we just chopped it up and we talked about not just coming back to new england but like my family my mom what i was moving towards and he was like man like whatever you got to do like i understand that like that to me meant the world of like this is not just me and a coach this is me and somebody that got to know me as a person talking about what's next how to best do it so i always like i still text slow uh i went out and interviewed justin jefferson for nbc last year chopping it up with flow we got to talk so uh he's always gonna be like one of my favorite coaches but just a good friend for me for sure and i mean he's had success pretty much everywhere he's gone you know didn't work out with the fins but you know from a defense perspective and that's what coaching is like and our business it might not work out right andy reed was in philadelphia for years took him to the super bowl they wanted him gone right like yeah man he doesn't win the big one yeah oh he doesn't he goes to kansas city and it doesn't stop the eagles right two super bowl since so it's just that's how things work and i understand like there's other people's experiences with flow that to me are justified in their experiences what they say about them like that is how they feel and that's what so i fully understand i don't sit here and be like man no they're wrong he's great now for me he was awesome from a personal level still like that for me and I fully understand that. I'm curious like what's your what's your thoughts like or you know a lot of coordinators become head coaches right like that's kind of the the trajectory. Why do you think some have more difficulty in translating into that head coach role? What do you think that dynamic is? Man it's hard because it changes up like what you do day to day right like you go from you go from this this coach who gets to have these kind of unique and dynamic relationship with your guys that you only get to worry about like your guys on defense and like your special groups and you get to know them and you get then you get the whole team and everybody's like oh but it's not the whole team aspect of it it's everything outside of football it's all of the media things you got to go to it's a yeah we're drawing up the program for the the gala that we're having what do you it's like the gala bro like i want to i want to coach football and obviously close with gerard mayo and i remember last year getting to see him at the owners meetings and we're in orlando he was like bro i barely get to do ball like i'm i'm staying up late to watch film because every time i'm trying to get dragged into something i'm getting pulled here yo the the organization is going over this like we need you here we need your input there so i think that's the biggest transition for all of these coaches and depending on where you're at you might not get pulled up into some of those meetings that your head coach is in and going through, which I thought was unique, where I think Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn kind of talked about Dan Campbell mentoring them in a way of like, look, this is how this is going to be. Hey, check this out, kind of giving them an inside look. And so much is fixated on you winning right now. They're like, you don't, sometimes head coaches don't have time to like mentor that coordinated because like you're so focused on winning. So I think that's the hardest aspect of taking care of everything outside of football when all you like a lot of those guys, man, they just want to coach ball. They want to win. And there's so many other things. And I think that why you need to make sure you get leaders of men and of people and organizations like and we get so used to saying leaders of men but nowadays it not as leaders of people You have women all throughout sports and I think we seen that good for sports So we need more women, we need more input on how to run things, how to do things a better way. So I think that's extremely hard from my experience of playing and then now being in the media aspect of getting to go to teams and talk to coaches and talk and see. different lenses you see how much head coaches get pulled in so many different directions that's a crazy way to think about you don't really realize how much level you know complexity that goes into the role as a head coach but you talk about your media i want to get in into that whole world right so you you and your brother start the podcast when you're there in new england and it's evolved into now both of you being on tv tell me a little bit about like what was that that first feeling getting behind the mic and, and you know, you're football player first, but now you're kind of putting yourself in this different kind of personality and different light. Yeah, man. I got to give my brother the flowers. Like he, he jumpstarted it. Even, even with our podcasts, like we're different and how we do things like both as players knew a lot about what was going on because I play safety more. I felt in charge, right? Man, we're going to do this stuff. And Jay was, cause he was a corner. he would know everything but you get used to checking with your safety because they got the view tv kind of world jay wants to dot every i cross every t he wants to have pages of notes and i'm like hey bro like i'm all with preparation i was in the new england tree like it's all about preparation but i'm like you doing too much like we gotta we gotta be ready so like when we did our podcast he would do a lot of like yo did you jump in and run a show and add stuff i was like no i checked it out but like we good but you didn't add anything and i'm like yo don't worry we're good so we always had that kind of like back and forth i get it and he retires a year before me and goes into the unknown and we have both went to the nfl broadcast boot camp he he got rated higher like all the all the nfl network or nfl people were like jay was the highest rated i think they give him a little edge because he went and worked for nfl network so he hit the double whammy but they love him over there so they always talk about how great he is and it all stemmed from when we did the radio calling the game on the radio i went first so at the mistake i made i text him like hey don't do this don't do that and you'll crush it so his was better than mine because i gave him the feedback yeah he's done it but then when he goes to good morning football and you know his first auditions i'm in la so the time difference i'm waking up early i'm watching it because like this is new now i know i'm going back to football but i'm watching my brother like make this this scary transition that we've been dreading since day one and they tell you about it and he does it and i'm like man that's all right and i remember watching later in the season and i'm like okay like he's getting better at this and i remember facetiming while he was in and they were in London for the week doing the show. And I was just like, hey, bro, how you doing? Like, we all talk about this and we're in a ton of group chats together. Said, but I'm checking to really see how are you doing? Now has been some time. You could actually miss being out there. I'm still out there, you're watching. And he just tours me of the room. He's in this big suite in London. He was like, I'm living life. This is awesome. And that hit me hard because I was like, we were struggling in New England a little bit. The seasons weren't going the way it used to be. And I felt like I was turning into the point where I was just holding on and seeing him and being like, okay, like he's killing us. And then while in March, when I retired, no, right before I retired, I did the show with him for a week. They allowed me to come on and host for a week. Oh, that's cool. And that's when I was just like, oh shit, he's good. Like we're in there and we're going and we're and he's laying out to go into the breaks. He's jumping. He's jumping on the teleprompter. He's reading the teleprompter. We come and I'm like, oh, like, yo, you've been working on your crap. And that for me as a brother was so cool to see this guy who did something just like me for 13 years all in. That's what everything's about. And now he's running his own segment where he's got the teleprompter moving. and he's doing all of these different things. I'm like, yo, man, he's really crushing this. This is awesome to see. And that inspired me more than anything. And that's when I knew that year, I was like, man, I'm done. I want to get into this too. I'm watching him. He loves it. I think I'll love it too. And as we get into the next topic of like when I retired my last year, during the bye week, I went to CBS NFL Today, didn't ask the Patriots for permission I said I'm gonna ask for forgiveness later oh wow because you realize once you get older you got more retired friends than current playing friends is once it's over it's over like there is no tapping back into the team like you're on your own the team's still worried about winning with their new players yeah so I said I think I might want to do this I gotta just go so I did that season ended I went back to NFL today I went to NFL Network and did two days, Saturday and Sunday, with NFL Network on their playoff coverage. Then I went and auditioned for Fox. So I was like, all right, bro. Sit back, wait for these job opportunities to enroll in. Retire, March. March goes by. April goes by. Now we're in the beginning of May. And I'm like, damn, I thought I was going to get a job. I'm like somebody, anybody. and I'll never forget my guy at NBC that I met at the boot camp, Fred Goodelli. Fred calls me and he goes, hey, what are you thinking? I heard there's a lot with CBS. Like, just don't sign anything until you hear back from me. And I'm like, Fred, man, like it's being competitive. Like I ain't have nothing that I wanted at the time. But the fact that he thought that I did, I was just like, all right, like I'll try to wait for you. and I get off and I tell my wife I'm like man NBC called and I had did an audition I had to do an interview with NBC they were starting their Big Ten coverage a traveling road joint and I was just like it's not ideal like we got young kids yeah I'll be traveling every weekend I said but NBC like I would take this and I get a call from my agent and he was like hey we got an interview I was going to New York to do CBS Sports. They were doing a draft preview. I went, and this was the second year I was doing this. So I went to do, and he was like, before you leave, we're going to go to New York City, and you're going to go meet with the executive producer at NBC Sports, Sam Flood. And I'm like, okay, what's this about? He was like, they said maybe NFL. And I'm like, but they only have Sunday Night Football, Football Night in America, the pregame. man we go supposed to have an hour lunch it goes for two hours and a week later jump on a zoom and they're like we want to offer you the job at football night in america and we want to add your chair because we think you can add to our show and i'm like oh okay they're like so and i love saying he's like we're the number one rating he's selling me i'm on i'm on the other end like sam you ain't gotta sell you ain't gotta sell me yeah send the contract over where do i sign man it's been unbelievable because i just didn't imagine straight out i was going to that and my wife would tell you it was some of the hardest parts of our marriage was we were still living up in massachusetts got the job had a hall of fame game in august like there was no like training like summit you go to like just throw you in you just go in so my anxiety is building up we're packing up our house in Foxboro and we sold it. We got to go back to Jersey, but our house in Jersey that we're moving back into, we're actually building a house around the corner. So we have all of these things going on. And my wife said, my wife's a rockstar because she does all that. I'm not big into like, I don't care about a lot of like how like, man, we did well in life and we got a house. I grew up in an apartment in a mobile home. Like we got this big old house, like whatever you do is going to be fine by me like so I'm not as into it but I'm now freaking out because I'm like I gotta worry about this damn job I don't want to mess it up so it was just so much like back and forth and stress and I still remember I go out to Canton and I do well that first time out and I'm just like so excited I take a shot at Jay opening like my opening thing like welcome Devin McCourty football night in America I was like man we're at the hall of fame game my brother when he was a six-year-old draft pick so he played a lot of snaps in this game back then because he wasn't that good and just the rush I got I walked away and the next day I had to go to New England I went to one of their practices and I was talking to Bill and I was just like man I that rush was so cool and I didn't think I would ever get that again from playing and doing what I did as a player and I was like I really like this I think I'm gonna do this for a long time and that feeling was a stamp of like hey man you made the right decision retiring because you never know when you first retire right yeah and we can circle back to that kind of component of like post-retirement and post-career but when did it hit you there like damn now now i'm a tv guy like when was it was it like that first moment you're like you see the kid because it's like you got the cameras you got the lights you got all these things mic'd up you know that stuff didn't bother me as much like that was cool my realest moment of like man like you're really just tv guy now was this year gerard mayo gets fired and him and matthew slater like two of my closest friends that i played with and i gotta go and talk about it now and the crafts i played up there for 13 years i got to know the crash really well they they invested in like sickle cell and different things like that through what I was doing with Sickle Cell and my campaign. And I'm like, now I got to go talk about these kind of like they fired him. And like this is and going and talking about that and talking to the producers before we go on air to try to. Yeah. And like I'm texting them, hey, tell me if there's anything that is important to y'all just got fired. I'm texting about TV. And it's just like that was the first time where I was just like, man, like this is the one thing that i was like dreading doing of feeling like man you're in it but also i always look at it as like i want to be an advocate to what most fans sit and they think about of like man fire him they didn't win of like no this is a human being exactly this is a guy with a family this is a guy just like how anybody else gets fired from their job how much that sucks it's the same thing here it sucks i'm not telling you to feel bad they make a lot of money of course i'm just telling you like, Hey, just think about that before you make any crazy comment or anything like that. So as much as, as hard as that was, I also felt in that moment, I want to be in this seat. I want to be able to talk about that. I want to be able to give insight into these things because I do, I think I'm in a position where I can do that. And as hard as that was, I also enjoyed being able to be in that role and felt honored and blessed to be able to do that. Well, it's, it's good because you have that refreshing kind of perspective on it as a guy that has a direct relationship and connection to these guys that you're like i'm not going to put you in the negative and as far as like a media perspective right because fans are always going to have some sort of thoughts on it but it's like what do you really know at the end of the day because you have no connection whereas you it's like i'm not just a media guy like i played with these guys i was in the trenches with these guys i'm going to make sure that i understand what the fans want to hear and what TV viewers want to hear, but I'm also going to protect my guys. That's what I've learned is so cool about now. As a media member, I'm a former player, a huge fan, and I'm an advocate. I put all of those things together because when I retired and I got into this, my fandom came back. I was so used to, as a player, being like, man, I hope Buffalo always loses. I hope the Jets always loses. I hope the Dolphins always loses. No matter who they play, I want them to lose. So I don't like anybody on Buffalo, Jess. I don't like anybody in Pittsburgh. I don't like anybody in Baltimore. You become that because you know they're stopping you from getting to the Super Bowl. We were always in that position to get a game away from the Super Bowl or in the Super Bowl. So I always wanted them to do poorly so we could get in the Super Bowl. And then when I was done, I'm like, man, Kyle Hamilton and Baltimore is a bad boy. I fell back in love with just the game of football, which is super authentic. So when I go and talk, sometimes if I'm on TV and I get to talk about a player or a player or a coach, I'm a fan talking to you. Because not every player I talk about is a friend of mine or I've gotten to know. I'm telling you, I'm turning on the film and I'm like, oh, this dude is awesome. I love this. And I hope when I'm doing that, people, man, he loves the game. I can hear it. It shows for sure. It shows. That's the part I love that you get to put on all these different hats and talk about football. No, that's sick. That's sick. I mean, I watch you on TV, on NBC all the time. And you could tell like there's just a different caliber coming from like a person from you, not to take anything away from other guys on TV, but it's like just this level of understanding. right like me as a fan i'm listening in with the intent of like i want to learn too you know i don't want to just be entertained like exactly i want to learn like obviously there's there's importance to entertainment right but there's also a ton of value and being able to sit down and digest and let me learn something here yep every time we go on tv the top guys at nbc they go teach me something entertain me don't just teach me something without entertainment yeah and don't just entertain right like that's all they tell us and it is like you said that it's a fine line and when somebody hits it in our world the people we watch and we talked about it before we jumped on it's tnt it's it's it's shack it's kenny it's uh barkley it's this ej we all want to create that because yeah we're highly entertained and we still learn the game of basketball that's what were all chasing you look you look back like when you go back to school right like those teachers that were just boring you're like bro i'm not learning anything right now but that teacher that just somehow was able to make learning fun made me remember everything i had a world war ii class in high school that was my favorite class i liked history but god damn you can ask me anything about world world ii now because he incorporated saving private ryan and he was adding these elements of like band of brothers and then bringing it into a history lesson. I'm like, I've never been more engaged in a class like that. So it's very, very similar in that world. And coaching is the same thing. I tell people that all the time. Coaching is not just the X's and O's. You can't just sit up there and board people with all that. You got to relate to guys. You got to know where to meet them, how to bring them in. So it's definitely, it's a unique thing. And it's a unique gift to have when somebody has that as a teacher. Absolutely. Well, you clearly found your identity post football, but a lot of guys struggle with that you know post post anything right when you're starting that new chapter you devoted so much time and energy into this specific space and then now it's taken away from you whether that's through retirement whether that's you don't get signed or injury or whatever that may be what would be your level of advice for someone that's struggling to find that identity post-career pro athlete community man it is so interesting and feel very blessed through pack and through knowing different people we got to have a conversation i got to talk to candace parker and i know the stories of like nfl players and she said to me she was like you don't understand of like women sports is even different she said we go in with the thought of we gonna have to have a job We going to have to do these different things We don have the NFL to bank on Like that a totally different environment And I was just like damn Not even a thought. Not a thought. Like, even if we play five years pro, we got to get a job. Like, we're not making that kind of money. And now I look and I try to tell guys that because I'm like, there's levels. But you just said it. Everybody's transitioning from something. in all walks of life. So I tell guys like for one, give yourself grace. Don't sit there and be the guy that was the person who they had to be to be elite in football. We had to give ourselves no grace. We had to be like, man, my step's not straight. I'm a little, I'm a little, I'm 45 degrees. No, you need grace in this transition. I told guys the first pack I came back and spoke to, I told guys, sometimes you wake up and everybody tells you your day needs to be full. It needs to be packed. Sometimes you need to have a day or a morning or a morning or afternoon where it's set just on you. Whatever you love to do, whatever it is to bring you back and kind of ground you and put you back in. You got to have that because we've been like this the whole time on go do this, do that. Sometimes you got to you got to settle back. And the second thing I tell guys is we got to keep just chugging along. We got to keep shooting our shot. We, when you get to do football and all you master it, right? Because when you think about it, you start at whatever high school, 10 years old. Like I did, I did it till I was 35. Like that's mastering a skill. You do it for that long. So when we jump into the next thing, we're like, we're masters. I got to master whatever I do. No, how, how? like that CEO that's a billionaire he's been trying to be that for the last 25 years exactly he's been at the worst worst level of job ever he's failed like I know I've met different guys who do really well now and they've told me like just downstairs today guys say hey I went public I was worth 55 million dollars a year later it all went to zero like that's ultimate failure yeah seriously still now he's an owner in sports leagues and figures it out exactly and i try to tell guys man as you give yourself grace man don't be scared to just keep hopping in things keep trying them out keep doing those things keep failing and getting back up because that's okay yeah like it's okay that you might retire at 29 and you don't and you're not a master at 32 of whatever you do next yeah like that's okay i'm 37 years old and and when i'm around football players i'm like the oldest dude ever you get in other different arenas people are like man you're so young it's true it's all perspective look at all these things you've done you're so young yeah like chip always tells us that he's like man i became my i got my dream job at 37 he's like you guys are talking about being done with work at 34 35 like that's not normal so i just try to bring that reality to guys before we ever dig into do you want to do private equity venture capital you want what pathway of job success before we get to any of that like let's work on you let's figure out what you need to do to be the right mindset going forward and what you need to do to provide for a family or whoever you have that's leaned on you throughout your career how do you continue to be that kind of leg on a table for those people because i know that's important to you yeah so how do we continue to be that person because like teal henderson who's a big part of pack she always says if you try to save everybody and you drown it doesn't help because everybody's still going to drown so it's making sure we have the right mindset before we really go into anything else for sure it's like you know people i'm i'm one of these people too you know you're so focused on this like perfectionist right everything's got to be perfect before i do this right when you do that it'll never get done you know it's like all right what can i do now to attack today be the best version of myself today so that tomorrow i've set myself up for that much more success and you just start stacking those days as days of just improvement right and they're not going to be perfect they're going to be far from perfect and you might take some steps back in that process But as long as that steady progression is happening and you're putting the work every day, doing the things that you can control, the winds are going to start to show. But when you get stuck in that like perfectionist mindset, you start paralyzing yourself. Man, as you said, it made me think back to 2013. Matthew Slater, I got to play all 13 years of Matthew Slater. He's one of the greatest people, leaders I've ever been around. And he was always on me about going to Bible study on the Patriots. It's like, hey, man, still haven't seen you. And I had that mindset of, man, right now I'll still be going out. I'm still having fun. Like, I'll get there. Like, when I'm ready, I'm going to pull up my Bible study. And one day in the offseason, I go, and one of my teammates, Nate Solder, is in there and is known. But he's talking about how he was diagnosed with cancer. And then his son ended up getting diagnosed. And he talked about that. And our chaplain came in and talked about there's no perfect time. Yeah. There's no like, oh, I'm good. I got everything figured out. And again, it's the typical story. Like, man, I wasn't even going to go to chapel today. And I go and y'all talking directly to me and the impact it now has. And that for me was big because then I was chapel every week and doing all those different things. And it didn't change how I viewed things. And I still wasn't perfect. Like nobody, we never get to that. But it made me now walk this line of, hey, man, I'm in. Like, I came here and I just got to be better than I was the day before. And if I feel like you just said, if I slip tomorrow and I fall back five days and I'm like, I'm where I'm at, where I was five days ago. All right. All right. All right. All right. I'm back to it. OK, but it's a process. It's a journey. and and that was big for me in 13 of figuring that out because i had a really rough year in 2011 and trying to climb out of that in 2013 i've got second team all pro again as a safety now so now this is once all right second team all pro is a corner and as a safety put my name next to ronnie lot and rod woodson which levels to this like they here i'm a little lower but the fact that like in the same sentence it was like only these three players have done that i was just like damn that's pretty cool and it was just that mindset of figuring out like man it's okay where you're at now where you're at how do you go and i needed that at that point in my life and it's stuck with me ever since that's awesome well before we wrap it up i want to just get your thoughts obviously you're on the board there with pack right what it what excites you most about where PAC is heading and what the work that they're doing. What I love about PAC right now is when I got introduced to this, it was right after, it was right. Caleb was leaving the Dolphins, which PAC started kind of as like an NFL transition program. It was, you go to events, it's all NFL. And now like we're heavy, like we're all pro, like this is pro it's not just NFL. right so it's it's the expansion it's now going out there and having conversations with people and talking about the wmba the nba fifa the nhl it's bringing this because for so long we get stuck in our sport like for me in football it was just like these are the problems of football you realize like man these are the problems in sports like this is a problem in pro sports everywhere and I just love that. And now being the board co-chair with my brother, we go and we have these conversations like I go and I'm having a conversation with a friend and I've gotten to know him from my time in New England. He's a billionaire. I'm like, man, I got to get you down to one of these business combines. I got to get you talking on a panel. Your story will ignite so many different guys. And I say that now when I tell my friend that who's a CEO, I'm telling him that because it'll help the guys. I'm also telling that because the times we've gone to dinner, he's like, man, like, it's crazy to say this, but I love when I go to hire somebody and their resume says college lacrosse, college football, college field hockey. Sure. He was like, I love seeing that. Or I love seeing, hey, I did pro soccer. I was, she was a pro soccer player for, he was like, I love that. He's like, because I know what I'm getting. I know there's no sick days. I know there's no this hurts. I can't come in today. because I know I'm gonna have to send that person home. So when I think about pro athlete community, I'm like, this is a two-way street now. I'm connecting people to help our community, but our community's gonna go back and help them too. So man, it's been awesome. I didn't think I would join another board. I've been, my time in New England, I met a lot of different people that do great work in nonprofit spaces and I volunteered and helped out on their board and I gotten to see what it means to be a board member. I was like, man, I got three kids at home, no more boards. and when I talked to Chip and talked to Caleb, I was like, man, this is who I am. Like I'm passionate about this. Like I've lived it. I got to help. I got to help this grow. And it's been unbelievable to be with them and go to different events and have conversations, Zooms with different people as we try to grow this. And then I'm just happy to be, uh, kind of on the, on the floor, the cutting room floor of growing pro athlete community and everything pack can be a hundred 100%. And this is my second pack event now. We did the one in Miami and now this one. You could just tell the level of selflessness that everybody involved has. It ain't about the individual. It's about everybody else here. And everyone is here to just, what do you need? Yep. Just want to pour into people. That is it. And when you have that kind of like as the backbone, like sky's the limit. And there is a need for this and and it's you know personally i played baseball up until high school tore my rotator cuff and i was like i'm done what am i gonna do here right but i struggled with identity and all my boys that i played at high school baseball with and sports with all struggled with it and they still to this day are like like sports is all they know so they feel like they got to do something in sports where it's like i get it like you're passionate about it you lived it you breathed it but you might have a bigger purpose than that right and that was your avenue to get out you don't got to be so stuck in it yeah and it comes to like what you were mentioning like just go try different things go experience experience stuff see what it is that you don't like see what it is that you do like you don't know and from there you can at least start figuring things out i'm i'm you know i look back at my journey i'm very grateful for taking that leap of faith right I got my degree in exercise science out of college, kind of was following that path of like, I did sports. I got to stay in sports. And I'm still around sports, but like in my way, you know, the way that I feel like this is what I was meant to do, what I was called to do, like share stories, be kind of a voice of reason, provide a positive message to people. But it took some deep soul searching to figure that out. And exactly what you just said is what I want all the former players to think about. Right. Like it took soul searching. It took time. I did this because I thought that. And then I was here. And I'm like, that's your journey. Yeah. That's going to be your testimony someday. Exactly. When you get up there, you're going to go and you're going to speak it. You're going to tell people. And I've been big on, me and my wife, we went through a really challenging time. And we lost our third child, would have been our third child. We lost our daughter. It was a stillborn. And when I was in the middle of that, and it was crazy because that happened. We found out the 23rd. So my wife had to give birth to her on the 24th. The 25th was George Floyd. This is all 2020. And we're all in a hospital room. And all this happens. So like when I get the news, we're all on Zooms and stuff with our team. I wasn't in a mental space to be like man I'm gonna call coach and tell him I'm not gonna be on because we're dealing with this yeah it wasn't real to me yet so I didn't even have the words to be like hey we just lost our door like I like I still didn't want it to be real yeah yeah and my wife is looking at me like you really about to jump on the meeting and I was just like man I don't want to tell you the reason why I can't jump on the meeting so I'm in that meeting and we're talking about social justice and we're doing all of these different things and i'm like i remember that happened in may and we get to like june july time and i'm listening to a pastor this dude charlie dates out of chicago he had lost his mom and he had took time away and he came back and he said what i learned was i had to pick up my tears and doesn't mean i'm over it you never get over this you just pick up your tears and you carry them with you and whenever you need to cry about something you let it rip and you just go from there and through that i learned was i went through that because somebody's gonna go through something and they're gonna be in a really bad spot and i was like and my story's gonna say something and one of my good friends his son was born he had all heart issues had to be uh flown out flown to a specialized hospital wasn't sure if he was gonna make it and he's going through it and i call him and we're just on the phone and i'm telling him about my dark moments and what i was going through and son ends up surviving and year later months later he calls me he's like yo that meant the world that you called and you was open and you told me all those things because i needed it and i was like bro i needed that yeah and i said i did that and i told you that because i was like somebody else is gonna need that And I was like, there's no why. I was like, we all search. When these bad things happen, we search for that. And I was like, that's the why, man. Your testimony, when you testify that to somebody, they're going to get through whatever they're going through. I don't know what that is. And I was like, but I'm telling you, you're going to hear somebody or somebody's going to tell you something and you're not going to be comfortable telling about your darkest moments. And I was like, and it's going to hit you that you got to go there. And I was like, and when you go there, that person's gonna go there with somebody else and i was like that's the like and that's what i think about pack like this community is that when you go through something somebody tells you their testimony and it's all within a community that we keep lifting each other up that what we go through we get through it those blessings that come to us they don't just come to us they go through us so that blessing of whatever i go through don't stop here i gotta send it along we gotta keep it going so i just try to live by that because that was a huge moment in my life of like again some hard things as a kid that i went through my dad passed and all that grandparents i've had grandparents as an adult when that happened like i'm living life man i'm in the nfl i'm doing all these great things and that happened that stopped me dead in my tracks and to get through that it took a lot And I just try to make sure that anything I go through becomes a testimony to somebody else to help them. I believe that's a big purpose in life for us to go through some tough times. 100%. 100%. I always look at life as like a chapter book. Chapter one, chapter two. There's going to be some fun chapters in there. There's going to be some. And then at the end of the day, you close the book, the book's done, and that's it. That's your legacy. Exactly. and the more we all kind of lean into that as people and we lean off of each other off of that we're going to realize we're way more similar than we are yeah exactly yep we need more of that man that's so true facts but appreciate the time brother i really enjoyed the conversation love everything that you guys are doing at pack and you know being an inspiration to so many people so keep doing what you're doing hey man appreciate your services coming down and believe in impact absolutely definitely do man appreciate it brother yes sir Thank you.