HOUSTON — The New England Patriots’ wide receivers and defensive backs play for the same team, obviously. But team camaraderie goes out the window when the two position groups square off on the practice field.
New England’s receivers and D-backs are uber-competitive when matched up against one another, with both vying for the right to say their group “won” a given session. Along with that competitiveness comes trash talk, of course, which often spills over into the locker room.
“It’s pretty competitive,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said Thursday at the Patriots’ Super Bowl LI hotel. “We get a couple of 1-on-1 periods sometimes, and the trash-talking starts. You get going. I think for us, even different times when guys have to jump in on the look (scout) team. And offensively, they jump in on the look team. All that keeps it going. We’re all competitive.”
That competitiveness also extends to players who aren’t even on the Patriots’ active roster.
“Even a guy like (receivers) DeAndrew White and Devin Lucien on the practice squad — they’re competitive, too,” McCourty said. “You might not see them out there on Sundays, but they’re trying to win. When they have a good week against one of our corners or against a safety, they’re talking trash, too. So it’s that normal wide receiver/DB competitive attitude. Hang out all the time off the field, but on the field, it can get ugly at times.”
Other wideouts and D-backs gave similar accounts of the rivalry between the groups.
Wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell: “(It’s) competitive. They don’t want to lose. We want to win. … That competitive drive is still there — from the first week of training camp to this last week of practice.”
Cornerback Eric Rowe: “Yeah, it gets a little intense. But it’s a good intense — a good competition. It’s not like getting mad at each other or anything. Because obviously, you’re trying to push each other to get better, so it’s a good competition. … We do 1-on-1s, and we’ll do best out of 10 or 12 or something and see which group is up at the end. Usually, we win, but sometimes the receivers win.”
Wide receiver Danny Amendola: “It’s highly competitive. It gets heated sometimes. But that’s the nature of football. We’ve got a great group of DBs. We get better because of them. It’s hard for us every day, and it’s fun to play with them. I literally go against Logan Ryan and Cy (Cyrus Jones) and J-Cole (Justin Coleman) every day, all day long. It’s like, yeah, he knows my moves, I know what he’s going to do. We try to mix it up every once in a while. I tell him I’m going to mix some things up today every day. I try to keep them on their toes a little bit.”
Thumbnail photo via Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports Images
