New England Patriots Super Bowl Champion Dead at 38
Jordan Devey blocked for Tom Brady the year New England won it all. His wife announced his death by suicide on what would have been their 15th wedding anniversary.
Jordan Devey died by suicide, leaving behind his wife Linsey and their four children. Linsey shared the news Friday. They’d married in July 2011, and their 15th anniversary would have fallen the next day.
The path to the NFL was improbable. Born in American Fork, Utah in 1988, Devey developed Osgood-Schlatter disease in eighth grade and quit football for years. He never played a down of high school football.
He played tuba in the American Fork High marching band instead, and marched in President George W. Bush’s second inaugural parade. After a two-year LDS mission in Costa Rica, he walked on at Snow College in 2009, transferred to Memphis, and played every offensive snap of his college career, roughly 1,560 plays, across three positions. He earned second-team All-C-USA and the team’s DeAngelo Williams MVP award.
He went undrafted in 2013, got cut by the Ravens, and landed on the New England practice squad. In 2014 he started six games at left guard and was on the Super Bowl XLIX roster, the first Memphis offensive lineman ever to win a ring. His 7-year career ran 44 games and 21 starts across the Patriots, 49ers, Chiefs, Raiders and Bills. Buffalo released him in August 2021 after one final game.
He settled in Eagle, Idaho, coached his kids’ teams, and worked at Eagle High School as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, where players called him a mentor and friend. Linsey said their four children carry his “eyes, freckles, and compassion,” and that his last words to her were “we’ll talk soon.”
His parents, Kerry and Leslie Devey, told Fox 13 Utah they believe he may have been dealing with CTE, a degenerative brain disease tied to repeated head trauma. No diagnosis has been confirmed; CTE can only be verified by autopsy. They’re using the moment to push mental-health conversations: “It’s okay to reach out. You’re not fighting the battle alone.”
He was 38.
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