Jordan Devey, a former NFL offensive lineman who captured a Super Bowl championship alongside the New England Patriots, has died at 38 years old.
A GoFundMe campaign created to assist his wife, Linsey, and their four young children states that Devey “took his own life.” By Saturday morning, the fundraiser had raised more than $92,000 toward its $200,000 target.
Devey had an unusual path to professional football — he never played the sport in high school. A disease that causes knee inflammation and pain in young people led him to step away from the game after junior high, and he channeled his energy into playing tuba in the school band instead.
After completing a two-year mission with the Church of Latter Day Saints, Devey enrolled at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. With his knee problems having eased, he returned to football and played two seasons there before transferring to Memphis for his final two years of college ball. Going undrafted in the 2013 NFL Draft, he signed with the Baltimore Ravens.
That same fall, the Patriots brought the 6-foot-7 lineman onto their practice squad. He earned a promotion to the active roster in 2014 — the year New England defeated the Seattle Seahawks to claim Super Bowl XLIX.
In 2015, Devey suited up for the San Francisco 49ers, appearing in a career-best 15 games with nine starts. He went on to play for the Kansas City Chiefs, the then-Oakland Raiders, and the Buffalo Bills before retiring after the 2020 season. Over his NFL career, he appeared in 44 games and made 21 starts.
After hanging up his cleats, Devey gave back to the sport by volunteering as a coach for his children’s teams and serving as a high school football coach in Idaho.
In an interview with Fox 13 in Salt Lake City, his mother, Leslie Devey, said she believes the degenerative brain condition CTE contributed to her son’s death, which occurred on Tuesday.
