The Patriots selected Jacoby Brissett with the 91st overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft.
But apparently, New England wasn’t exactly where the now-27-year-old wanted to end up.
“I honestly did not want to be there,” Brissett said on the latest episode of Devin and Jason McCourty’s podcast “Double Coverage with The McCourty Twins.” “When I took my visit there — my pre-draft visit — I was like, ‘Hell no. If one team drafts me, it better not be them.’ And I’ll never forget, Josh (McDaniels) called me on the phone on draft night and I didn’t have his number saved. That’s how bad it was — I didn’t even have his number saved in my phone. I was like, ‘Damn, man.'”
Once he got to New England, however, his tune changed.
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“Then I get there — everybody’s like, ‘Man, it’s New England’ — and then you just meet some of the dudes on the team, like you (Devin McCourty). That’s when (Terrance) Knighton was on the team and Anthony Johnson and Martellus (Bennett), and it was just fun, man. I’ve never been around so many older dudes that were so young, you know?”
Brissett played in just three games for the Pats, all during Tom Brady’s four-game suspension following “Deflategate.” He racked up 483 yards, one touchdown and a 61.8 completion rate while recording just one fumble.
One of the main things he says he learned was “how to be a pro.”
“We would laugh in the locker room and decompress when we’re not doing football stuff, but when we were in football — everybody thinks it’s like the military — we were locked and loaded. And there was no game where we felt like, ‘Damn, this team might beat us.’ Coming from a different team, you’re just like, ‘Damn, the confidence here is just crazy.’ I mean, Super Bowl game, all I remember Duron (Harmon) on the bike at halftime, like, laughing. I’m like, ‘Man, Duron’s got to do something. We’re losing.’ (laughs) I’m like, ‘(Expletive), we finna lose. We’ve got $100k (winner’s bonus) on the line.'”
