It was a bit jarring to hear New England Patriots fans shower Mac Jones with boos Monday night after he threw a second-quarter interception against the Chicago Bears.
But Devin McCourty was less surprised.
The 35-year-old safety knows fans in New England hold their team to a very high standard, and that if they can boo Tom Brady, they're certainly not above booing Jones.
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"I’ve been here a long time," McCourty said Friday on WEEI's "The Greg Hill Show" when asked about the Gillette Stadium crowd from Monday night. "I’ve been booed. We’ve been booed. Tom’s been booed."
McCourty then offered a reality check of sorts for fans of a team that's gone 20-21 since Brady's departure in March 2020.
"I will say, as a veteran, I understand we play in an area that I will say has been very spoiled in what it expects from the team," McCourty said.
New England Patriots
"When I got here, everything was about, 'How do you win three Super Bowls?' When you’re in the NFL for a while, you realize, we got that done, but that’s not a normal task at hand to say, 'You’ve got to win three Super Bowls to be considered a good football team."
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Patriots fans may not react kindly to McCourty's comments, but he makes a fair point. The Patriots enjoyed a ridiculous run of success with Brady and Bill Belichick from 2001 to 2019, reaching nine Super Bowls (winning six) and earning 16 AFC East titles.
But they were very much an outlier, as no team appeared in more than three Super Bowls during that 18-year span. So, McCourty seems to be reminding fans that it's very hard to win in the NFL, especially after you lose the greatest quarterback of all time (who so happens to be two games under .500 for the first time in his career).
Then again, you can't blame fans for expecting success with a legendary head coach and a first-round quarterback. And the Patriots still have plenty of time to get back on track, starting with a Week 8 matchup against the 5-2 New York Jets.