The New England Patriots had several options with the No. 28 pick in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft.
They ultimately decided to select Rutgers defensive back Devin McCourty, and it turned out to be one of the best draft picks the franchise has ever made.
McCourty played 13 seasons for the Patriots and was an important contributor to three Super Bowl-winning teams (2014, 2016, 2018). He was one of the best safeties of his era and a well-respected leader on and off the field.
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Perry: Patriots face impossible task of replacing irreplaceable McCourty
McCourty announced his retirement from football a couple weeks ago, but he held his retirement press conference at Gillette Stadium on Tuesday. Many current Patriots players were in attendance, as well as head coach Bill Belichick.
Belichick said a few words about McCourty during the ceremony, including a fantastic story about his pre-draft meeting with the Rutgers star in 2010.
"We got into the film, and that's where I kind of got blown away," Belichick said. "Coach (Greg) Schiano told me that Devin was really smart, could run the defense and knew what everybody was doing. I've heard that before, so I was like, we'll see. We started asking him a few questions about the secondary. 'What's this coverage, who does this, who does that? If this guy goes in motion, what's the call?' He went through all that pretty good. So I thought I'd ramp it up a little here and started asking him about the linebackers. 'What are they keying on this? What are they doing on that?' He knocks that out, too.
"So then I figured I'm going to embarrass him a little bit here. Let's start talking about the defensive line. One of the classic things everyone calls is a stunt where the end and the tackle both go inside, and the corner comes. It's called a pirate stunt. It's pretty universal.
I said, 'What's this called, Devin? Let me guess, it's called a 'pirate.' And he goes, 'No, it's actually 'buck' because everybody knows what a pirate is, so we have a different call for that and call it a buck.' He knocks out the whole defensive line, too. I had never really had an interview like this. I was completely stunned that he would know as much as he did about the entire Rutgers defense."
A high football IQ was one of McCourty's best attributes with the Patriots. He was the quarterback of the defense -- a unit that helped the Patriots win a lot of games and three Super Bowl rings during his time in Foxboro.