Jason McCourty Discusses NFL Insights & Super Bowl 59

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00:00All right, it's Adam Kaplan here for Sports Grid, Super Bowl 59, and the guy to my right

00:06is one half of the McCourty brothers, Jason McCourty.

00:09Good to see you, my friend.

00:10Hey, good to see you.

00:11All right, so, first of all, where do we start, because you're doing television for ESPN,

00:17you're doing Get Up, and you're, are you in NFL Live, too?

00:20Yep, yep.

00:21Okay, which I did when I was there.

00:23You're doing CBS Games on Sunday, so you're doing it all, and now you're a full-fledged

00:27media guy.

00:28Now, you worked?

00:29You know, I know you were with the Patriots for a little bit.

00:31Yeah.

00:32So when you worked for the Patriots, you were told to say nothing to the media?

00:35I wasn't a part of that, so it's funny, when my brother gets drafted there, that was 2010,

00:39and I remember he got the phone call from Stacey James and the PR department there,

00:43and they're like, don't do any interviews, run everything through us.

00:46By the end of his 13-year career, he was talking to anybody about anything, so I think there's

00:52a trust that's built up that once you're a guy that can be trusted, then you can go just

00:56to be yourself.

00:57All right, so you were telling me off-camera that for your work for CBS, you called two

01:01Eagles games, so let's talk about the Eagles, since you know them very well, you were in

01:05the production meetings, you talked to the coaches, you talked to the players.

01:10One of the games you told me you did was the Jacksonville game, they didn't play all that

01:13well, I would say, but look, they're here, so your overview of the Eagles as a football

01:18team.

01:19Well, I think when you look at the Philadelphia Eagles, it's a lot of fun to watch them because

01:22you see the progression and the maturation that they had throughout the season.

01:26They leave that bye week, and next thing you know, they enter Cooper Dejean at the

01:29nickel spot, their defense goes up to another level, and then offensively, they dedicated

01:33themselves to running the football, and when you look at that Jacksonville game, it wasn't

01:37that they played bad in that game, it was some questionable decisions, some fourth down,

01:41taking points off the board on extra points and things of that nature.

01:44That was the game.

01:45Yes, and then you see as the season progressed, you can't remember the last time Sirianni

01:49had a questionable call that somebody wanted to talk about on a Monday after, so I just

01:53look at this team and the growth and adversity that they've gone through, where it was a

01:58year ago, they're 10-1, they hit a little bit of a rough patch, and they never rebounded.

02:03This year, they had different things where A.J. Brown talks about the passing, then they

02:06come out and throw the ball all over the Steelers.

02:08You had an incident where C.J.

02:09Gardner-Johnson gets thrown out of a game, and you're like, well, what's going to happen

02:12next?

02:13Sirianni gets into it with Jalen Carter on the sideline, and they've rebounded every

02:17single time to get to the Super Bowl.

02:20So the game you called against Jacksonville, right?

02:23When you see Saquon Barkley make a move that I don't think we've ever seen, when you saw

02:27it, what were your feelings?

02:29I remember pushing Tiki Barber in the booth, we were calling a game together, and I said

02:33to him, like, can you do that?

02:35Is there another one of that?

02:37So it was just insane, and I think the coolest thing about Saquon Barkley, obviously we get

02:42a chance to see what he does on the football field, but when we're sitting there talking

02:45to him in a production meeting, we had him the last game of the season as well, and was

02:50he going to play, was he going to break the record, Eric Dickerson's record, and just

02:53somehow we ended up talking about the Giants, and obviously he played there for a while,

02:57and he ends up talking about how he has built a relationship with Tyrone Tracy just through

03:02seeing him perform, and he reached out to him, Saquon did on social media, and they

03:06were planning a workout, that just goes to show you the type of teammate and the type

03:10of person he is, and I think it goes without saying obviously how great he is on the field,

03:14but who he is as a person is huge.

03:16So by the way, I know the game against the Giants that you called, Tanner McKee was the

03:21quarterback, what are the Eagles' feelings on Tanner McKee?

03:25They love Tanner McKee, and I think beyond what we watched him do when he got his opportunity,

03:30the way guys talked about him in the locker room, this is a guy that has the ability to

03:34relate to everybody in the locker room, he talked to us about being 18, going on a mission

03:38trip to Brazil by himself, and having to learn the language and just figure it out while

03:43he was out there, and he talked about in a small part of how that kind of has helped

03:47and helped shape him and taught him of now being in a locker room with so many guys from

03:52so many different places, with different reasons why they do what they do, he's able to relate

03:56and bring people together, and you got to see that, and he was able to run the offense,

04:00pick it up fast, and I think he's a guy that, obviously they have Jalen Hurts, but when

04:04you look at that backup spot with him and Kenny Pickett, you almost can maybe flip one

04:09of those guys in the future to see if you can do something with.

04:12I think you're on the right track, so let's talk about the Chiefs here for a minute, so

04:15Andy Reid's doing it again, they're going for the NFL's first three-peat, why are they

04:19so good?

04:20Oh, I think, when I got to New England, there was, Bill Belichick saying was, in order to

04:25win you got to keep from losing, and it seemed very simple, but when you watch the Kansas

04:29City Chiefs, they don't lose football games, there's not going to be a decision that cost

04:35them the game, there's not going to be a penalty, or just a mess up in something that's structural

04:41or some operational like that, you're going to have to go out there and flat out beat

04:45them, and this is a team that has been on the big stage and has performed time after

04:50time, they have young guys on their team, a guy like a Trent McDuffie, who in his early

04:54in his career has played in all of those big moments, and has had to make plays and show

04:58up for his football team, George Karloff, all of these guys, so it's not only the veterans

05:02and the Christians and the Mahomes and the Kelsey's, but it's young guys that have figured

05:06it out as well.

05:07Alright, so Jason, let's look forward to Sunday, let's fast forward, so how do you see this

05:10game breaking down?

05:11Man, a lot of it obviously is going to have to do with how the Chiefs slow down Saquon

05:16Barkley, and I think in order to do that, a lot of that has to do with making sure you're

05:20doing your job and not peeking in the next gap because of how good he is, and then on

05:24the other side of it I think is the Patrick Mahomes effect, the Mahomes magic of that

05:28moment where he has a huge scramble, he makes a key throw to Travis Kelsey, of can the Eagles

05:33stop that time after time?

05:35I'm fascinated to see what Jalen Hurts is able to do with his legs, the last time these

05:39two teams met in the Super Bowl, Hurts was fantastic, probably the MVP of the game, just

05:43didn't have the W so he couldn't go home with it, so I've picked against the Chiefs every

05:47week of the playoffs and their fans have let me know that I'm an idiot and they think I

05:51hate the Chiefs and I don't, I think it's extremely hard to three-peat just to get back

05:56to the Super Bowl, so they've defied all odds, so it's extremely hard to pick against them.

06:00So who are you picking?

06:02The Eagles.

06:03Another former NFL player, we're about 64-year-old Eagles, so for Jason McCourty, I'm Adam Kaplan.

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