Devin McCourty speaks bluntly about Patriots not being Super Bowl contenders

BOSTON -- On Thursday morning, Devin McCourty provided the world with an update on his life, featuring some family photos as well as a picture of himself, Tom Brady and Mac Jones attending Robert Kraft's party in the Hamptons.

"Them: Devin what have you been doing since you retired?" McCourty wrote in the caption. "Me: Living life!!!!"

Recently, McCourty actually provided the biggest reason that he's no longer playing, and that reasoning serves as a harsh reality check for the Patriots.

In an interview with Pro Football Network's Ari Hasan, McCourty said he didn't return for another season because he doesn't believe the Patriots can win a Super Bowl.

"I think for me [the] back-and-forth was just a little bit of that fear of not doing it. I started to just think about the things that were enticing [reasons] to play were no longer the things that I used to care about. Contract career earnings, interceptions, those things were things I never cared about. I didn't start for the Patriots to do those things," McCourty told Hasan. "But I think especially as you get older, you start to only play to win a Super Bowl. And I was like, if I go back, I don't think we'll go win a Super Bowl. So as I started to sit there and be like, 'Alright, what did we really set myself up for? We were eight and nine last year. Am I gonna go to another team? Is it worth it for six months?'"

Considering the Patriots haven't won a playoff game in four seasons, that's not an explosive viewpoint. Still, coming from a man who captained the New England defense for the past dozen years, the message does hit a little bit harder than it would coming from anyone else.