Devin McCourty

What's up everybody?
Welcome back to another week and another episode of Unfiltered Waters.
And this week we welcome our very first football player.
And I know you're gonna say, wait a second, didn't you have your husband who played football on the podcast?
But I feel like that was kind of a change because he was talking more about this week than his career.
So this week we welcome Devin McCordy to the podcast.
Devin is a three-time Super Bowl champion playing with the Patriots for 13 seasons.
And oh my gosh, Devin is the definition of a leader.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with him at the Pack Accelerate event.
I've talked about this before in Arizona.
We had so many different athletes from so many different sports sitting down and talking all things and transition, investing identity.
And Devin is someone who I was very surprised at how vulnerable, authentic, and raw he was able to get.
I mean, swimming has those elements, but I just think football being an all-male sport still has those elements of kind of neglecting mental health.
And so we get right to it, we talk all about uh, you know, their rookie skits and you know, him making fun of coach Bill Belichick.
We talked about, you know, how he was able, I mean he was elected captain in his second year and then remained captain throughout his uh final 11 more seasons.
And so talking to him about how he was able to step into that role really when he was still a rookie, you know, commanding attention from people like uh Randy Moss and Tom Brady was fascinating to me.
And I learned so much from him.
And then we talked about the personal side, some of his hardships he's had with his relationship with his wife, with a miscarriage, and I was just so floored by how willing in this room full of tons of people he was so willing to tell me some of these very traumatic things that have happened in his life, but truly what has now transformed him into you know the analyst, uh the philanthropist, the amazing dad that he is today.
So so many nuggets per usual.
Again, shout out to Pack, the pro athletic community for making this interview happen.
And um, you'll be very impressed by some of my play calling to start off the episode.
So you'll have to watch it to see what I'm talking about.
Uh but please leave a comment, leave a like, subscribe.
Appreciate you guys all so much.
And please enjoy my conversation with Debra McCourty.
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Devin McCordy, welcome to Unfiltered Waters.
Happy to be here.
Appreciate you having me.
Yeah, you're the first football player.
So yeah, so I'm very excited to chat with you.
Um, but and I'm obviously not, I know about football.
I'm married to a football player, he has all his friends, but I from a you know, like a play calling aspect, I am not super smart with that.
But most football players aren't good at it either, so you're okay.
But you're you're pretty good, I know.
So I wanted to get your thoughts on one scenario and then we'll move on from all the technical.
Okay.
Okay, so this is a scenario.
You're at free safety, offense breaks the huddle.
They line up in four by one with the back to the tight end.
Okay.
Let's say it's second and ten in the high red zone.
What this is the Eagles play.
Touchdown I gave up, I feel like.
Okay, well, hold on, let me finish.
What plays are you expecting?
You just said a touchdown.
What adjustments would you make then to the four by one formation in that situation?
So we probably have a four by one adjustment.
The guy to the one side, I'm gonna alert him, alert the slant, possible slant route coming back.
But what I would be thinking, we look, they're gonna load up one side to move us, to make us move all our coverage there, and then those guys are gonna cross and come back across to try to take advantage of the weak side would be the first thing.
So I would think first backside, if they get a one-on-one matchup they like, they're gonna go to the slant.
If not, I'm thinking running back to number two or number three to the other side, inside, being the targets, however, they get to some type of crossing pattern.
Okay.
I didn't know anything I was saying.
I just texted Matt Sokol because I wanted to impress you.
I like where you went with.
First, I was like, is she an Eagles fan?
Because the game winning touchdown I gave up started.
Started in a three by one, the running back, uh, why I remember this vividly, I mean, because we lost Super Bowl.
Right.
Motions to create four by one.
I don't see the motion fast enough to see the four by one slant backside.
But it's a fun part of why football is so damn technical, yeah, but also so simple.
I mean, that's why I wanted to.
I mean, also it's kind of a joke because I am so in swimming and I wanted, I feel like I delivered that really naturally.
I practiced it on a bunch of things.
The fact that you took out this notebook and you're like, so they're in a four- I was like, what is she really?
Like, did her husband, did he send this, like, this is what you gotta start your podcast with?
I like it.
But I I there's also a seriousness to this, is that I just think that coming from the outside looking in in the Olympic sporting arena and then being married to an NFL player, people there's so much that just people do not see or appreciate when they're screaming at their TVs or like that, just the amount of studying is unbelievable that you guys go through and like have to be so intelligent to be so elite.
The most fun I used to have when I was on the Patriots, we would have this fantasy camp where business, business execs or top businesses would buy a table and they would send 20 people to take part in a football training camp.
Oh so I would do it, and after like my second year, I'm like, oh, this is fun.
And I would have people doing drills on, oh, well, you were cursing at the TV.
What is McCourty doing?
He doesn't.
I said, now you got to do it.
Oh, it's a little harder than you thought.
I used to love that because now people got to experience what it felt like being on that field that's happening fast, and not that they should be good at it.
I got paid to do that.
Right.
I should have a standard, but it was just fun putting people through it.
And I think vice versa, when I retired and had to walk into a new world, it was like, whoa, this is different.
And I just love that acclamation that people have to try to go through.
Yeah, it's like until you walk in someone's shoes, exactly type thing.
Exactly.
So before we started rolling, we were talking about rookie skits, and you know, when this releases, it'll be kind of the start of minicamp and football camp.
And I know for a fact that Hard Knocks and other shows very much glamorize camp.
So do you remember some of the crazy times in your first rookie camp?
And does any in particular story stand out?
Yeah, so being a rookie, and I was in New England, I was a first-round pick.
So I was the first, I was the only first round pick.
I was in charge of the rookie skits.
So we would end a meeting, and Bill would say, Tomorrow, McCourty, you better have these ready to go.
Oh God.
And then I would be in charge of getting people together, doing it.
So I remember our first rookie skit, and we have Randy Moss.
So you think of who are the guys we can make fun of that as soon as we do it, it's gonna hit.
And a part of these skits are did a guy get in trouble in the offseason?
Did something happen that we could possibly attack?
So we did Randy Moss, you know, went, I went to uh Party City, bought a wig, Afro, and you had to like choreograph and put together all these things.
Where you think it would go?
So we made fun of Randy, we made fun of Bill, and then we had this guy, Ross Ventrone, who was like, Hey, I could do poetry.
Oh no, like slam poetry.
He did slam poetry, and he did where he made fun of Tom, Bill, oh no, all these different people, our DV coach, and we crushed it, and we did so well.
Our meetings got canceled for that night.
How well we did.
So this is Twitter's like two years old at this time, right?
So everybody tweeted, shout out the rookies, no meetings.
We got back in the next day.
Everybody who tweeted got fined for tweeting what happened inside the building.
Only like, I say only, like a thousand dollars.
For a rookie, that's a that's a that hurts.
Yes, but some veterans got fine.
Everybody that tweeted got fined.
It's like, welcome to the NFL, guys.
Yeah.
Is that not terrifying as a rookie?
Like, I mean, imagine you're coming in, Tom Brady, these legends.
Like, how are you?
I mean, I guess you don't have a choice, but were you terrified?
I have so many stories just about that because the unique thing about the NFL is you're a fan first.
Yeah.
So I had all these people, I got in a locker room as a rookie, Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Tori Hall, Fred Taylor.
I'm I'm like, how did I end up here?
It's like ultimate imposter syndrome.
I get there, and the first two weeks, the veterans aren't there.
First week they come in.
I'm walking to a next drill or I'm running, and Tom stops me.
And he's like, hey man, I'm Tom.
We're excited to have you.
And I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna feel like in my dreaming.
And I walk away like, no shit, you're Tom Brady.
I know you're I went home that night, I called my mom.
I was like, I met Tom Brady.
Tom Brady knew who I was.
It's terrifying, but at the same time, you're living your dream.
And what I've always admired about Coach Belichick was Bill told us as rookies, he said, being a rookie in my program, I want you to imagine being in the middle of the ocean on a paddle boat with no paddles.
It's that hard to get to shore.
Yeah, that's a great thing.
And he said, I don't want to scare you, but I also don't want you to walk away saying, Man, I wish somebody told me this was going to be hard.
So I went in with the mindset of this is gonna be hard, but this is what I want.
And I'm gonna attack it and I'm gonna try to, I'm just giving my best.
And it worked out in the end.
But so many guys let that fear stop them from going all out, and that hurts you more than anything.
I mean the same thing in Olympic sports.
You go from their posters on your wall to you're on the same team, and you're like, oh, now I belong, but I have to believe it.
And your y'all's is harder because it's every four years.
Yeah.
Like I fail and now I gotta wait.
Yeah, you're like, cool.
We talked about it.
I gave up that game, went in touchdown in the Super Bowl 52.
That very next year, we won Super Bowl 53.
Like getting back to the top and winning, that gave me so much fulfillment of man, like I was crushed after that.
And to get back and then win, and then I won the next year with my twin brother.
Like, it was so rewarding.
I still I still hate that I lost Super Bowl 52, right?
But I couldn't imagine being like, man, I gotta stay healthy enough.
I gotta train, but I gotta do that for all of this time and knowing that the destination is so far away.
Like that, I don't know.
I always look at and I always wish I could have been an Olympian.
I wish they would have had football that I could have tried, but I always have so much respect for that.
That's so hard.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, it's like the mountain is you start back at the bottom in the new quad and you're like, here we go.
And obviously there's benchmarks, but yeah, you know, the old the big show that everybody else knows and sees, you gotta wait.
You gotta wait.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you caught on very quickly, I feel like, to leadership.
Like the fact that you were a 12-year captain is just says so much about you.
Did that come innately to you, or is that something you had mentors help you with?
Like, how did you do that?
It's weird.
You know what?
Um the first time I was a captain on a team was my redshirt senior year of football in college at Rutgers.
All through high school, I was never a captain.
And I kind of thought of myself as a leader, but never took it serious, really.
And I think my my last year in college, I knew I was gonna be a captain, right?
I was there four and a half years.
Um but I also had something about me that, and I think it came from my mom.
My mom, single mom, my father passed away when I was just three years old.
My mom was a little bit of a pit bull, and she always spoke her mind.
And I kind of got that from her.
Quiet to start, but once I got somewhere and I figured out how, I always felt like, man, it was on me to like speak for other people and do those things.
So I never had a problem with that.
And I kind of learned that leadership embodied that a little bit.
It was being authentic and it was saying, I don't know if this is right.
Maybe we should do this.
And it was saying that to anybody.
And being a captain in New England, my second year I got voted a captain.
Did I feel like I should have been a captain?
You brought it up.
And posture syndrome, Tom Brady, Vince Wolford, Logan Mankins, Gerard Mayo, Matthew Slater, all captains.
I'm in my second year, and I walk in that meeting, and I'm like, I don't belong here.
And I was a pro bowler my first year, but I was being good at the job, and I did that.
But now being a leader, and I'll never forget, they were like, Bill said to me, You're here to lead some of our younger guys.
What you were able to do in year one, they all voted for you.
Yeah, they voted for you not only because you performed, but they saw you come in day in and day out with the pressure of being a first-round pick, and just come in and be consistent.
Just run with that, take that, do that.
And what I grew into while being a captain, I became a husband, I became a father.
All those things made me a better leader.
And I didn't know what I was getting into.
And then you fast forward, and I always tell I always tell my wife this for 12 out of 13 years, I sat in a locker room with ultimate alpha males, and they they listened to me.
They wanted to know my opinion.
I retired and and went home.
My wife didn't give a damn about my opinion.
I was like, we're not efficient here, we could do this better.
And she was like, I've been doing this since we've been together.
I don't care about your opinion.
That hurt me.
That crushed me more than anything.
So being a leader, being a captain, for me, it was always about evolving.
And Matthew Slater, I was a teammate with him for all 13 years.
He taught me the most important thing about leadership.
It was about servanthood.
I had to learn how to serve other people to be a great leader.
And that's what I've always tried to do.
That's incredible.
Yeah, I feel like that's the one piece when you see people just try to force feed.
Oh, I am the leader.
It will never work.
So I try to teach my kids that all the time.
How's that going?
Do they listen to you yet?
Barely.
I thought my wife didn't listen until we had kids.
They really don't listen.
Yeah, I'm 20 weeks pregnant, so I'm about to experience.
Thank you.
There's nothing better.
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So I love talking on this podcast, we talk about transition all the time.
You're retired in 2023.
I always love hearing people's.
I don't know if you were in the meeting this morning about Konsugi and just like the cracks and the scars that you really, I think, become your superpower if you use it in the right way.
So what are some of your scars from your career?
Yeah, man, let's go deep.
Um I think for me, I've had different ups and downs, right?
I talked to you about my first year I was a pro bowler, my second year I struggled.
And people wanted me done.
I got my position changed.
And when you get your position changed, I felt like, man, it's like my last leg.
I'm only in my second year.
I'm a captain, I'm all these things.
And that was humbling all in itself.
And I changed my career.
I changed positions and became an all-pro at Safety Next.
And I was like, man, I'm good.
And football career was going well.
And being an athlete, you always think of the hardship.
I spoke about losing my father.
I thought everything was going to be a part of sports.
Losing Super Bowls, doing all those things.
I lost two Super Bowls.
I got through that, and I'm like, man, this sucks.
And in 2020, we're all going through COVID, but me and my wife, we have a stillborn.
Our daughter is eight and a half months uh developed.
My wife's eight and a half months pregnant.
And uh I hate bringing this up.
You just spoke about me.
No, no, no.
It's um, but my wife is a doctor, and we're sitting there one day, and we're just on the couch, and it's like late at night.
And my wife's like, and my wife is always anxious about stuff, and I always try to be the opposite of like, ah, it's okay.
And she's like, Ah, something doesn't feel right.
And I was like, here you go again.
Like you're worried about things.
And she's like, I think I'm gonna go and get an ultrasound.
And I stay back at this time.
We have two other kids, stay back with the kids, and she calls me and she's just like can't get out words.
And she tells me the news like our baby didn't make it.
And the hardest thing I've ever been through was hearing that called my mom, called my brother.
Like, I'm panicking now.
Like, should have just called my mom to come over to my house.
I pack my kids up, I drop them off at my mom's house, and now we gotta we gotta deliver a baby that you know we don't know.
And like that was like my ultimate low.
I didn't know as a husband, as a father, as a man, I knew what I had to be for my wife.
And it was the first time in life, like my brother and like a few of my like really close friends.
I remember being in the hospital and calling them, and I was like, I can't do this tomorrow.
Like, I can't.
And they poured into me.
And I went through that and it was right around George Floyd.
And now I was like, man, we have virtual meetings as a team, but I wasn't ready to tell my coach or tell my teammates what happened.
So that next week, I went through I went through everything.
And my wife's looking at me like, why are you doing this?
I wasn't ready to talk about it.
And I went through that whole season as a captain, as a leader, and then I kept going.
And then you talk about transition.
Then we transitioned out of football, went into a new chapter into broadcasting.
That was going.
Great.
I got a dream job first year out.
And the one thing that wasn't going great was my marriage.
And I had to drop my ego and be like, man, everything me and my wife have been through now, I'm transitioning, but she's transitional.
And we did six months of marriage counseling.
And I was like, I had never done any therapy, any of that.
That was your first experience of therapy?
First experience.
Wow.
We did premarital counseling with our team chaplain, what was great.
But that was basically based on what we want our marriage to be like, getting deeper into the Bible of what we want.
This was what was your deepest childhood fear?
Oh.
What was your deepest childhood need?
I'm like, what?
And going through that for six months, me and my wife grew deeper.
I learned more about her in those six months than I probably had known the eight, nine years we had been married.
So some of those things that now I carry with me, they changed me so much that how I walk in the rooms, how I'm vulnerable.
I talked about being in marriage counseling last night, um, uh being at this pack event and the opening night, I spoke about that.
And then I had a conversation at night with an individual who was like, Man, me and my wife were going through something where we're going through marriage counseling.
Tell me about how I was on your end.
And I've learned through those scars.
And the main one of in 2020, what helped me get through that was when me and my wife had to announce it because people knew we were pregnant.
So many people reached out to me and was like, man, we went through something.
Man, we've lost multiple kids.
And that changed me where I was like, man, I gotta be open about speaking on this.
So it was unbelievable.
And so when I saw the bowl and I saw the catch, like I understood that because I'm like, that's all of us, and I've heard it before now.
Um, but it's been big for me.
That's amazing, and thank you for sharing that.
I feel like everyone has something hard happen and they almost feel like they're in this isolation tube.
And then the second they speak out, they're like, wait a second.
There's so I mean, I went through IVF, same thing.
So many people go through it, and it takes someone like you that's like, you know what, I'm just gonna put it out there, and you have this flood of love you've headed your way.
Yeah.
Is there anything that you wish, because I feel like in sports, there's always someone who's going into retirement, and I mean that's what this whole event is about.
Is there anything you wish you knew right when you retired or wish you had done that you didn't?
I wish I knew that life is gonna be better.
Um, like my playing days were awesome.
Like I did things that I'll I continue to talk about, but I don't I always thought that that was the high of the high.
I always thought, like, man, I could get a good life, but like it won't be what it was.
It won't reach that ultimate.
Yeah, it's like how a Super Bowl win.
How can we?
No, for us as athletes, it was gonna be here, and then it was like, how far down do you drop before you can just have the just main maintain that?
And then now I'm done, and like I'm traveling while guys are in training camp.
I'm doing different things that I never imagined I would do, that have been so fulfilling that when I first retired, I was only focused on let's have a soft landing, let's not land too far.
Where now I'm like, man, I'm still I'm still going up.
And a credit to it didn't hit the way that it hit once I retired.
Kobe Bryant spoke to us and he was like, Man, when I retired, I did 20 years for the Lakers, and people were like, Man, your legacy, what you've done.
And he was like, I was looking at he cursed a lot.
He was like, I was looking like, man, you mother, you don't know.
The next 20 years is gonna be even greater.
Oh, I guess we chills.
When he passed away, I was just like, man, that guy had purpose.
He had a mission.
And I was like, man, when I retire, I gotta have that, but then you forget about it.
Like I heard that before the 2018 season.
By the end of the 2018 season, I won I won a Super Bowl with my twin brother.
I'm like, how does it get better than that?
There's no like there is like we used to train together.
We used to do Pop Warner when we were 10 years old.
We started together, and then you go through the transition, and now I called a Super Bowl for NBC on the pregame show.
I was on the field at Super Bowl, and I'm like, man, I can't believe I'm here.
And I'm with this new team, and I've been with them for three years, and I love every minute.
It was just so rewarding, and I I would have never dreamt that I would have done that after my football career.
So I again, I would have told myself, man, keep dreaming because you're gonna you're gonna reach some of those dreams, and it's been awesome.
Yeah, I feel like it's one of those things that like right when you're coming out of it, you're almost like not ready to hear it, you know?
And you don't want to hear it either.
You don't want to hear it, and it really is true.
It's just like, okay, it's almost like you, yes, that high of winning a Super Bowl with your twin brother, that's a high, but it you just can't compare it.
Yes, you know, I think that's what I realized.
I'm like, I'm trying to chase the same, the same feeling, but no, like I can have a feeling this high, but it's just a different feeling.
When I first retired, honestly, one of my dreams and the back of my mind was that somebody was gonna call me and I was gonna come out of retirement and go win another Super Bowl.
I was just like, how cool will that be?
I'm on TV, someone's gonna call me.
Patriots are gonna be good, they're gonna call me back, I'm gonna jump in and win another Super Bowl.
And like each week that goes by, it's like that's probably not gonna happen.
And we don't say it out loud, but all of us are like, man, there's probably like one more run in me.
There's what like I could do this, and a blessing and inspire when I see guys do that, but like at some point it set in, and I was like, ah, that's that's not gonna be your journey.
Yeah, that's not gonna be what's good for you.
And again, it's been amazing, and I love it, I enjoy it.
And part of that is because I get to be a dad, and that's probably been the most fulfilling thing since retiring.
I get to pour into my kids in ways that I didn't get when I was a kid because my father just he passed away, he wasn't there, yeah, and that's been really cool.
Oh, that's that's incredible.
All right, last question: What is a word that defines you or just serves as a reminder of who you want to be on the daily?
Ooh, a word.
Um chosen.
Chosen.
Uh, and I say that because when I was in the NFL, there were certain things I wanted to be a part of.
And I I used to I used to read the book of Ruth uh and the Bible, and Ruth came from a family that wasn't much, but the king fell in love with her, so she ends up in the king palace, and now all the Jews are gonna be taken out.
And her uncle Boaz comes to her and he's like, Man, maybe you're in your position for a time like this.
Maybe you've been chosen to be there, not to be the greatest of all time, but your mission is to go speak up for your people.
And at that time, if you go to speak to the king and he disagrees, it could be off with your head.
Yeah.
And such a crazy time.
She decides, you know what?
I'm gonna go speak to the king.
And she has all her family, they fast for three days, and she goes and she does it.
And the king is like, what?
This is happening?
No, I'm gonna change this.
And for her, she was chosen to be in that role.
And I think sometimes we hear that and we think we have to be chosen to be like the most important person somewhere.
I'm on the pro-athlete community board because I think I was chosen to connect somebody to pro-athlete community.
I was a captain for 12 out of 13 years because my leadership was needed in a role that like I was able to talk to Coach Belichick about things that other people maybe weren't.
Like again, I think in 2020, we went through that situation as a family because I knew I was gonna speak to a friend who had a kid with a heart disease that was holding on that didn't know if his kid was gonna make it.
I knew I was gonna be able to speak life into him because of what I went through.
Did I know that at the time?
No.
But later in life, when that happened and he called me out of our whole friend group, and he was like, hey man, like I know this is probably a tough topic, but I just feel like I need to talk to you.
And when I talked to him, I was like, man, I was chosen to go through something that I never would have picked to go through, but this was what it ended up being.
And man, I'm so happy I was able to be a blessing in my one of my close friends' lives, and it paid off that way that I never would have imagined.
So I think that word has come up in life in so many different ways that I've needed to hear and I've needed to be in those moments at that time to go through it for it to matter later in life.
Beautiful.
Well, thank you, Devin.
I appreciate your time.
So much fun, and couldn't have thought of a better football player to be our first.
Oh, I appreciate that.