Editor's note: Tony Grossi covers the Cleveland Browns for ESPN 850 WKNR.
ATLANTA
If Cleveland fans need a rooting interest in Super Bowl 53, set aside your hatred of the New England Patriots, who outrageously are making their ninth appearance in the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era, and feel the joy of Jason McCourty.
Talk about good karma.
The cornerback labored honorably through the Browns’ winless season of 2017 through professionalism, perseverance and pride, and now has been rewarded with his first taste of the post-season and, perfectly, the Super Bowl experience his twin brother Devin enjoyed four other times.
“Surreal’s a good way to describe it,” Jason said.
There’s so much to like about the McCourtys story. They’re the first twin brothers to play for the same team in a Super Bowl.
They have shared so much time in the backyard, on the same Pop Warner team, on the same high school team, at Rutgers University together, but only now – in Jason’s 10th season and Devin’s ninth (he redshirted one year at Rutgers) – have they been reunited as NFL teammates.
At the ages of 31, they are starting on a Belichick defense – Devin at safety, Jason at cornerback – in the Super Bowl against the Los Angeles Rams.
Anyone who saw and felt Jason nearly crack during that historically depressing Browns season can feel especially good for him.
A naturally positive person, McCourty dug into his soul in a mid-week interview prior to the 15th loss of that season and anguished, “It’s rough. I’m not gonna lie. Even for me as an older guy, it wears on you week in and week out. None of us intended to have this type of struggle.”
Even though Jason was just a one-year footnote in the inglorious story of the expansion Browns, he made an impression on his teammates, who maintained a running conversation with him in 2018.
“As one of the older guys, I was referred to as Uncle Mac, so a lot of guys are still checking in,” McCourty said here.
Teammates forevermore: Jason and Devin are identical twins – Devin is 29 minutes older – and that supernatural bond has never waned despite their separation as NFL players.
Jason was a seventh-round draft pick of the Tennessee Titans in 2009; Devin a first-round pick of the Patriots in 2010.
Until this year, Jason never played in a post-season game. His teams in eight years with the Titans and one with the Browns compiled a record of 50-94. Devin never has experienced a season outside of the post-season. His Patriots teams compiled a record of 102-26, made it to seven AFC championship games and four Super Bowls, winning two.
Each time Devin made it to the Super Bowl, Jason would travel with his wife and (now) three children to celebrate the weekend with Devin’s family and their mother. (Their father died of cardiac arrest after an asthma attack when they were 3.)
“To be for four [Super Bowls] on the outside looking, like standing in the driveway looking in the window, and now to actually experience all the different things he told me about over the years … it’s just been special,” Jason said.
He took a minute to reflect on their sporting lives together.
“The best memories are just in Pop Warner games,” Jason said. “I remember our second year playing, we had our schedule with a little magnet on the refrigerator – my mom’s a big magnet collector -- and after each game we’d write how many touchdowns we had in each game, and I remember that season we finished with the exact same touchdowns.
“I just remember how fun it was. Practicing Pop Warner was fun. It was like every day was a scrimmage and I just remember we’d wake up early on game day and go outside before we went to the games, and we’d go over all the plays and throw the ball to each other. And I look back now, being at this stage on this platform, and you think back to like the age of 12 of doing all of those things and you couldn’t imagine that now to be playing together in the biggest game of the year.”
Best buddies forever: Another part of this feel-good story is the McCourtys' mother, Phyllis Harrell, who raised the twins while her oldest son left to serve in the Gulf War.
She has reveled in this Patriots season, celebrating her sons’ first year as teammates since 2008 at Rutgers by stitching together home-and-away Patriots jerseys bearing their names and numbers. Imagine her pride.
Jason said, “For us growing up, I remember being at Rutgers in offseason workouts, 90-degree heat, and me and him are going at it because I don’t think he’s working hard enough or he doesn’t think I’m working hard enough. High school basketball, we’d be in the middle of a timeout and we’d be arguing back and forth to the point where our coach would tell us to shut the hell up so he could coach the game.
“For us, it’s always been about motivating each other. We push each other to, I guess, get to where we’re at today.”
Jason said it’s been a unique experience seeing first-hand, after reading stories of, the high level of respect the Patriots have for his brother.
“Seeing how guys look to him and call him ‘my captain’ has been very humbling to watch,” Jason said. “To look at him, a young kid growing up who was always tugging on my shorts, learning from me, and now to see him as a captain and a guy who’s done so much for this organization and a leader, has been fun for me.
When John Dorsey took over as Browns GM with four weeks go in the 2017 season, he was able to jumpstart the work needed to refurbish the team. He knew the secondary screamed for speed. McCourty was an obvious casualty.
When the season ended, Dorsey was set to release McCourty, but Patriots coach Bill Belichick stepped up at the last minute and negotiated a trade to reunite Jason with his brother and prevent him from signing elsewhere as a free agent.
It was only a nominal exchange of draft picks in the sixth and seventh rounds in 2018. It turned out to be the biggest deal of the McCourtys' lives.