Pass rush needs to hurry Pats’ Jones
McCourty ready to face twin brother after 3 seasons together in New England
MIAMI GARDENS — Excuse Jason McCourty if he’s not that excited about playing against twin brother, Devin, when the Miami Dolphins face the New England Patriots on Sunday in Foxborough.
“I would be more excited if I could see his kids, but I won’t get a chance to see his kids,” said Jason McCourty, the Dolphins safety, only half-joking. “Him, eh, he’s all right. I saw enough of him the last three years.”
The McCourty twins, 34, will get to play against each other in their first game back on different teams after spending three years together on the Patriots, including one Super Bowl run in the 2018 season. New England safety
Devin McCourty has spent all of his 11 NFL seasons in Foxborough.
Sunday will mark the first time the two face off as opponents since Sept. 9, 2012 when the Patriots topped the Tennessee Titans 34-13 in Week 1 that season. Jason McCourty, a sixthround pick of the Titans in 2009, spent his first eight seasons in Tennessee. Neither McCourty twin played the next time the Patriots and Titans squared off in 2015, and Jason’s lone season with the Cleveland Browns in 2017 went without a meeting with New England.
The veterans with doubledigit seasons of NFL experience also head into the matchup as captains of their respective teams
after both sides announced those selections on Wednesday.
There is no brotherly wager between the two heading into Sunday, but the Dolphins’ McCourty says his brother is the more talkative one.
“Just a lot of trash talk,” said Jason McCourty of Devin, who has three Super Bowls and two Pro Bowls to his credit. “He talks a lot. That’s just him. A lot of trash talk that probably will just be continued by a lot of trash talk after the game. All in love and fun.
“He has an arrogance just from his years of a lot of winning. He’s developed that. It will be a lot of fun on Sunday.”
For Jason, it’s not in his nature to do the same.
“We’ll have conversations, but I’ll leave that more up to him,” he said of talking back if the Dolphins win. “I’m just trying to focus on executing and going out there one play at a time and see where that leaves us on Sunday. For sure in the offseason, there will definitely be a lot of trash talk going on between us two. Hopefully we can get our kids into it too. They can start trash talking each other.”
Even from the angle of facing his former team and not necessarily his brother, Jason McCourty has been here before. His first year with the Patriots, he faced the Titans. His second year in New England, he played against the Browns.
“What I’ve learned is it’s another football
game,” McCourty said. “Sometimes, as players, we get so involved and you get so riled up that you go out there and you psych yourself out of execution or you psych yourself out of a play.
“It’s a fun game because you know a lot of guys on the other side and it reminds you of growing up, playing football in your neighborhood where you’re going against all your friends and it’s more trash talk and it’s more competitive because you really want to beat those guys. For me, I look at Sunday like I’m there to play a game in New England like I’ve done other times in my career.”
Jason McCourty became a Dolphins captain in his first season with the new team, being a leader in a secondary that already has two of the league’s highest-paid cornerbacks in Xavien Howard and Byron Jones.
“A lot of experience,” Jones said of what McCourty has brought to the Dolphins. “Just coming in being a vocal leader right away is so impactful for a young team. He just has so much experience at different positions, whether it’s dime, nickel, corner and safety. He’s been able to go back there and just pick up the defense very quickly.”
McCourty has mostly played cornerback throughout his career, but coach Brian Flores, like he did with Eric Rowe and Bobby McCain likes to use converted cornerbacks in the back end at safety.
Devin McCourty made the same cornerto-safety transition in earnest earlier in his career, flipped there in 2013 after three NFL seasons at cornerback, including one of his Pro Bowl campaigns as a rookie.