There’s a good chance Jason McCourty will be the same player at age 31 that he was at age 30.
But it’d be hard to tell based solely on what it took for the New England Patriots to acquire the cornerback on March 15.
New England sent its late sixth-round pick in the 2018 NFL draft to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for a seventh-rounder and McCourty that afternoon. The drop of a dozen draft slots handed the Patriots a 104-game starter that the Browns had announced as a roster cut just over an hour earlier – and at a cap number under $3 million.