In its simplest form, defense in football is about finding the player with the ball and bringing him to the ground. No one on the New England Patriots has done that more this season than safety Devin McCourty.
Through five games, McCourty leads all Patriots defenders with 42 total tackles — nearly halfway to his single-season career high of 87. If he keeps up this pace, he’ll finish the regular season with 134 tackles, the most by any New England player since Jerod Mayo tallied 147 in 2012. No Patriot even eclipsed 100 in either of the past two seasons.
“Devin’s a very good tackler, always has been,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Tuesday in a conference call. “He’s got good quickness, good playing strength and a good feel for the ball. He’s fast. He’s made some of those tackles in space pursuit from behind that a lot of other guys might not make because of his excellent speed at the position.”
Belichick also noted that fellow Patriots safety Patrick Chung is a talented tackler in his own right — though neither he nor McCourty is quite on the level of ex-Pats star Rodney Harrison, whom Belichick believes should be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“I think (McCourty) and Patrick tackle very well at that position,” the coach said. “I think (they’re) two of the better guys that we’ve had. I mean, I wouldn’t put them in Harrison’s category, but (Harrison is) a Hall of Fame-level player, in my opinion. But those guys — Devin and Pat — in terms of their tackling, are very good. They’re very dependable.”
Chung has missed just one tackle all season, according to Pro Football Focus, while McCourty has missed two.
Having a safety lead your team in tackles usually means players in the front seven aren’t performing the way they should, but that fact shouldn’t reflect negatively on McCourty, Belichick said.
“You can’t control what the other 10 guys do,” Belichick said. “But when you get your opportunity to make it, then the team needs you to make it, and Devin has done a good job of that. The opportunities that he’s had to tackle, he’s pretty close to 100 percent on converting the tackles. He doesn’t have many misses.”
Thumbnail photo via Reinhold Matay/USA TODAY Sports Images
