The 2014 Patriots secondary had three key members heading for free agency when the season came to an end and they wound up retaining one of them.
Safety Devin McCourty re-signed with the team while cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner opted for deals with other teams, leaving them team with uncertainty about how they’ll line up at the position come September. On Tuesday, McCourty stopped well short of predicting that all will be peachy regardless of who is in the lineup because of how much work needs to be done before the team gets to that point.
“I’d be lying if I came out here and told you we were gonna be great,” McCourty said, via ESPN.com. “Same thing last year -- when we all got together, we didn’t know what to expect. We gotta put the work in now. We’ll grow as the process goes on, once we get on the field for OTAs and we’ll start practicing, doing things like that. That’s where you put the work in, and give yourself a chance to be a good secondary.”
There will be a lot of moving pieces as the Patriots figure out how they want to play things, but McCourty will give them a reliable center to build their defensive backfield around this season after signing a contract that makes his statyse as a team leader impossible to argue.