FOXBORO, Mass. — Sunday’s victory over the Buffalo Bills was particularly meaningful for New England Patriots cornerback Jason McCourty.
McCourty is in his 10th NFL season, and the division title the Patriots clinched with their 24-12 win at Gillette Stadium was the first of his professional football career.
New England’s playoff opener — which, depending on next weekend’s results, will be in either the wild-card round or the divisional round — also will be McCourty’s postseason debut. The Patriots can clinch a first-round bye with a win next Sunday over the 4-11 New York Jets.
The 31-year-old veteran wore his AFC East champions hat with pride as he addressed reporters after the game.
“Hat and T-shirt!” McCourty exclaimed. “First one. I’m excited about that, obviously. (Special teams captain Matthew) Slater said it to us after the game, there’s a lot more to our story, but you don’t take any moment for granted. It took me 10 years to be in a position to say, ‘You won your division. You put a hat and T-shirt on.’
“Even better to do it alongside my brother (Patriots safety Devin McCourty) and the guys in this locker room, so I’m excited about what we were able to accomplish (Sunday).”
McCourty, who called the win “a special moment,” never finished better than 9-7 in his eight seasons with the Tennessee Titans. In his one season in Cleveland, the Browns became just the second team in NFL history to finish 0-16.
“Being on this team, you don’t take it for granted,” safety Duron Harmon said. “You know how hard it is to win a division. But when you see a guy who’s been in the league for 10 years, played good football and just never had a chance to really win a division, to see how excited he is for the first time, it just lets you know all the work you put in for your teammates is always worth it.”
“It’s not easy,” added cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who played on losing Bills teams for five seasons before joining the Patriots in 2017. “I mean, Jason, this is his first one. You don’t come past these opportunities too often, so you’ve got to take advantage of them.”
McCourty plans to. He said he and Gilmore discussed their respective postseason droughts earlier this season.
“I’m kind of experiencing a little bit of what he experienced last year — before he got here he hadn’t been to the playoffs, hadn’t won his division — and just the newness of it,” McCourty said. “A lot of guys here in this locker room — for my brother, I know he’s won his division every single year that he’s been in the league — not that he takes it for granted, but he goes into every single year with that expectation.
“(At previous my previous stops), we always strived for that, but I can’t go as far as to say that it was expected. So I think every step you take moving forward, every time you win a game, every type of success you have, you want to relish it and cherish it for a second before you move on, because you know.
“Especially for me, 10 years. You know how hard that journey was — some of those losing seasons, some of those agonizing losses, being so close but letting it slip through your fingers. So I’ll enjoy the rest of today and then get ready for New York tomorrow.”
McCourty endured down performances in losses to the Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers and has been replaced by rookie J.C. Jackson in the starting lineup. He played just 33 of 61 defensive snaps against Buffalo but made two of the game’s biggest defensive plays — a toe-tapping interception of Josh Allen and a forced fumble inside the Patriots’ 10-yard line.
“The old man still can do a little bit of something,” McCourty said of his pick, which came in the fourth quarter. “Dev said he was shocked I caught it. I’m just happy to be able to make a play for our defense in a crucial point in the game.”
