{"id":38186,"date":"2019-06-30T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clnsmedia.com\/?p=38186"},"modified":"2021-08-28T05:34:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-28T05:34:29","slug":"top-ten-important-patriots-no-4-devin-mccourty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clnsmedia.com\/?p=38186","title":{"rendered":"Top Ten Most Important Patriots: No. 4, Devin McCourty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The third annual ten most valuable Patriots on the 2019 roster, according to Evan Lazar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Number four, Devin McCourty: there are only four players that are longer tenured Patriots than Devin McCourty and two of them play special teams.<\/p>\n

Only Brady (duh), Stephen Gostkowski (2006), Matthew Slater (2008) and Julian Edelman (2009) arrived in Foxboro before the Patriots drafted McCourty with their first-round pick in the 2010 draft.<\/p>\n

With that experience and tremendous leadership skills, McCourty is the unquestioned leader of the Patriot secondary.<\/p>\n

Mostly a free safety, he\u2019s also the \u201cchess piece\u201d that Bill Belichick deploys on the backend to prevent big plays to the opponents top playmakers.<\/p>\n

And there are a few primary ways that Belichick will use McCourty on any given week:<\/p>\n

Post safety\/\u201drat\u201d safety<\/strong> – the Patriots are mostly a single-high or post safety defense. They rely heavily on coverages such as cover-1 and cover-3. McCourty sometimes plays as the post safety in centerfield or shaded to one side to give extra attention to a dangerous receiver. There\u2019s also the \u201crat\u201d or \u201crobber\u201d that with a seven-man coverage is a free player that can roam the middle of the field looking for interceptions. The Patriots will use this player to jump routes on his own or cut off things like crossers over the middle.<\/p>\n

[arve url=”https:\/\/streamable.com\/s\/0fimx\/wmwdjf” \/]<\/p>\n

On McCourty\u2019s pick-six against the Bills, he\u2019s in the robber role as the Patriots baited Derek Anderson into the interception. McCourty holds his position for long enough to convince Anderson that he\u2019s a half-field player in a two-high safety defense, and Chung let\u2019s tight end Charles Clay get a step on him out of the slot. The issue for the Bills was that McCourty didn\u2019t stay deep and jumped Clay\u2019s route taking it back to break the game open.<\/p>\n

Brackets\/doubles<\/strong> – the Patriots will also use McCourty to double team or bracket certain receivers. They\u2019ll usually do this on an opponents number one receiver on the level of a DeAndre Hopkins, or in the case below, Tyreek Hill, but sometimes the number two receiver will get the bracket, and Stephon Gilmore will take the top guy.<\/p>\n

[arve url=”https:\/\/streamable.com\/s\/8xlon\/leteoc” \/]<\/p>\n

In the AFC Championship Game, the Patriots bracketed Hill with a combination of Jon Jones and McCourty holding him to only catch for 42 yards. In these brackets, the Patriots will either have the corner and safety play high-low or sides. On the play above, the Patriots dialed up a cover-zero blitz with a five-man pass rush, and McCourty and Jones bracketed Hill at the top of the screen. This time, the Pats play it high-low with Jones in a trail technique and McCourty covering against the deep ball. The inside twist works up front, and Mahomes has to hold the ball with his first read, Hill, taken out by the double, and Kyle Van Noy sacks the Chiefs quarterback.<\/p>\n

Cornerback<\/strong> – although he\u2019s primarily a safety, McCourty, a former corner, will come down and play man-to-man in certain matchups. He\u2019ll typically take a tight end in the slot, but draws the occasional matchup against a wide receiver.<\/p>\n

[arve url=”https:\/\/streamable.com\/s\/ctcyb\/dottfe” \/]<\/p>\n

Here, the Patriots have McCourty replace Patrick Chung in man coverage on Antonio Gates so that Chung can blitz Philip Rivers. Chung is head-up on Gates before the snap and then passes him off to McCourty behind him with the linebackers twisting up front. With no running back in to protect the quarterback, Chung gets to Rivers forcing a poor throw, and McCourty breaks up the pass with good coverage on Gates.<\/p>\n

Those are just a few examples of how McCourty makes an impact on the Patriots defense, and although he got off to a slow start last season, the 31-year-old can still flat out play.<\/p>\n

By the end of the season, he rose up to 11th in Pro Football Focus\u2019 safety rankings.<\/p>\n

And as a leader and human being, they don\u2019t make them much better than Devin McCourty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The third annual ten most valuable Patriots on the 2019 roster, according to Evan Lazar. Number four, Devin McCourty: there are only four players that are longer tenured Patriots than Devin McCourty and two of them play special teams. Only Brady (duh), Stephen Gostkowski (2006), Matthew Slater (2008) and Julian Edelman (2009) arrived in Foxboro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":131993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[355,210],"class_list":["post-38186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-devin-mccourty","tag-patriots"],"yoast_head":"\nTop Ten Most Important Patriots: No. 4, Devin McCourty - CLNS Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Devin McCourty is the \u201cchess piece\u201d that Bill Belichick deploys on the backend to prevent big plays to the opponents top playmakers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clnsmedia.com\/?p=38186\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top Ten Most Important Patriots: No. 4, Devin McCourty - 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