New England Patriots’ secondary has a stiff test without Devin McCourty.

The New England Patriots lost a long-time leader Devin McCourty in March when he announced to the world that he’ll be retiring. McCourty spent 13 years in the Patriots’ secondary and helped them win three Super Bowls, snagged 35 interceptions, broke up 110 passes, and forced 11 fumbles. Numbers alone can’t put a label on how important he was to this franchise, though, as his leadership and ability to communicate was unreplaceable. 

Adrian Phillips, a fellow secondary member of this Patriots defense that spent three years with McCourty, admitted that it will be tough without him. He said, “We appreciate him for everything that he did, and obviously, we still keep in contact, but you have to find a way to move forward without him. That’s the only way you can move forward. If you keep trying to find somebody to replace him or somebody to be like Dev, do this like Dev, doo that like Dev, we’ll never be able to grow to where we need to be.” He later continued, stating, “This is like the ultimate test for our secondary to be able to grow, because he’s always been that backbone for so long.”

Phillips will likely be a full-time starter back there and has experience after being named an All-Pro safety earlier in his career. New England also has Kyle Dugger, somebody with seven interceptions in his past three seasons and two touchdowns in 2022 alone. Then behind them comes depth in Jabrill Peppers and Jalen Mills. The safety position still has much to prove in 2023, though the talent looks to be in place to make that adjustment easier. Even their cornerback group improved, with the team drafting Christian Gonzalez in the first round. 

None of these guys anticipates this transition to be simple. Dugger said, “You can’t just replace a guy like Devin. We’re just going to have to make sure we’re communicating and talking. Communication will be important and help tremendously.” Bill Belichick has had McCourty help communicate things in the secondary for over a decade, but that key piece will now be missing. It’ll be interesting to see which safety takes that leadership role in the secondary to kick things off. It certainly seems like Adrian Phillips is preparing to take on that responsibility, though Dugger also has quite a bit of experience under his belt. 

Regardless, New England hopes to keep trucking forward defensively without their star. If they can hold up defensively again in 2023, they will get a scoring defense in the top half of the NFL for the 18th straight season. It doesn’t take much explanation to realise how impressive that statistic is. Finding a way to keep it going under these circumstances would be a massive victory for a Patriots team trying to claw their way back into the playoffs.