FOXBORO, Mass. — Just one year ago, Jason McCourty was part of a Cleveland Browns team that failed to win a single game, nosediving its way to just the second 0-16 finish in NFL history.
Now, the veteran cornerback is one victory away from a Super Bowl title.
McCourty, who hadn’t so much as played in a postseason game in nine NFL seasons before being traded to the New England Patriots last spring, reflected on his roller-coaster year after Thursday’s Patriots practice.
“Man, God is good,” he said with a smile. “That has to be the main thing. I can’t say, ‘Hey, from last year to this year, look at all the work I’ve put in. Now it’s gotten me to the Super Bowl.’ It’s not that at all. I think it helps you appreciate it even more — going through a winless season and then bouncing back.”
McCourty — whose twin brother, longtime Patriots safety Devin McCourty, has reached the AFC Championship Game in eight of his nine pro seasons — has brought a new perspective to a Patriots locker room full of players with multiple Super Bowl rings.
“I remember talking to Dev,” said McCourty, who toiled in mediocrity for eight seasons with the Tennessee Titans before his one year in Cleveland. “We’ve lost five games this year, and it just so happens it’s the most games he’s lost in a season. And for me, I’m like, ‘We’ve won 11 games. That’s the most games I’ve won (in any season) in my career.’ So just those extremes and coming in and just to embrace it and be a part of it.
“Even in the first game of the season — we won and I played five (snaps). And then there’s games where I’ve played the entire game. And that feeling of winning, it doesn’t matter how much you participate or how much you do. To be a part of it, to be a part of the process, I think has been the best part of the journey.”
As McCourty mentioned, his playing time and performance have fluctuated over the course of the season. He’ll likely be the Patriots third or fourth cornerback in Super Bowl LIII against a Los Angeles Rams team that boasts one of the NFL’s most prolific offenses.
But regardless of how many snaps he plays next Sunday, he’s just happy to still be playing football.
“I’m very grateful to have this opportunity and be able to still be playing football this late in January heading into February, and for me, you realize how special this is and how hard it is to get there,” McCourty said. “And to be there with this group of men has been an unbelievable season. …
“On Sunday, for me to be able to say, ‘I’m going to the Super Bowl,’ I could have hugged everybody in this locker room.”
Patriots defensive tackle Danny Shelton also was a member of the winless 2017 Browns.
