Devin McCourty is happy to be staying home.
The New England Patriots safety confirmed he re-signed with the club Sunday night on Comcast SportsNet New England’s “Sports Sunday.” He said he considered offers from the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars, but the Patriots’ winning tradition helped convince him to return.
“I was close,” McCourty said about leaving. “I’m like any other human being. You start going over different places. You know — all the places, the money was good. You start crossing off things that you like and all of those teams were good fits for me, so there was a chance I could have wound up at one of those places. But I was happy that myself, and Bill (Belichick) and all of the guys in the front office were able to work out a deal.”
It sounds like the Patriots took a rare step and upped their initial offer to McCourty as he weighed his many options. The Patriots only were expected to give McCourty $8 million annually, and he wound up signing a reported five-year, $47.5 million contract with $28.5 guaranteed. One can only imagine what his other offers looked like, especially the one from the Jaguars.
“We had certain benchmarks and number that I felt got that done,” McCourty said. “It was never going to be about ‘just do whatever the highest price.’ You want to be happy, and you want to win. We felt we had an opportunity at all of those places for ways to win, but obviously being in New England for five years, there’s no kind of mystery or question. I know we can win here, we’ve already done it, so that’s where they came in first in that category.
“Financially, they stepped up and hit all the numbers that I wanted. I think that’s what mattered, what was going to make me happy.”
Thumbnail photo via Stew Milne/USA TODAY Sports Images
