Devin McCourty admits what we all knew: The Matt Patricia-Joe Judge era was not good

BOSTON -- In New England, we've got some quirks.

For one, the head coach of the football team gets a lot of respect. So even when he makes a decision that seems unquestionably questionable ... people tend to defer to his expertise. Five decades on the job can have that effect.

Secondly, the football players here, they don't say a whole lot. That's by design. The less kindling they give to the public, the lesser the chance of a firestorm hitting their doorstep.

So even when something is plainly obvious -- like, say, the disaster that would accompany the implementation of a career defensive coach and a career special teams coach as the co-heads of an NFL offense -- it's not often stated as such. At least, it's not stated as much as it would be if the head coach weren't this head coach. And the players on the actual football team won't say a word about it.

But fortunately, Devin McCourty is no longer on the football team. A longtime captain and pillar of the Patriots franchise for a decade-plus, McCourty is now retired and -- thus -- free to speak a little bit more openly about the football team in Foxboro.

And when he was asked Wednesday morning on WEEI how "awkward" things were last year with coaches Matt Patricia Joe Judge and quarterback Mac Jones.

"I said it. I've said it this whole offseason. It just -- that wasn't a good thing. Like, there was nothing good about that," an honest McCourty answered. "And I think a lot of people talk about the season, but from training camp, there was nothing good about that."

That much has been rather obvious to those of us on the outside, but it's really the first confirmation from anyone who was inside the facility and on the practice field.

Bill Belichick tacitly acknowledged it by allowing Patricia to leave the organization while moving Judge from quarterbacks coach to assistant head coach (where he appears to just be coaching special teams). But in terms of an overt statement that the Patricia-Judge dynamic was a failure from July through January, this was the first such moment from someone on the team.

For McCourty, this reality had to have been a particular bummer, considering the final year of his NFL career was spent toiling for a very potent defense on a team that had an inept offense. But the 36-year-old who spent years playing in Patricia's successful defenses is at least happy that everybody else gets to move on from last year's failed coaching setup.

"But yeah, I think everybody in New England -- I think even Matty P. -- is happy that whole experiment is over and he's back to doing what he loves doing, coaching ball and talking defense," McCourty said.