Jordan Devey did not play a single down of football in high school. A knee condition called Osgood-Schlatter disease kept him off the field at American Fork High School in Utah, where he played tuba, trombone and violin in the marching band and competed in basketball instead. He died on July 23, 2026, at age 38, more than a decade after an unlikely path took him to a Super Bowl ring with the New England Patriots and, in his final years, to the sideline at Eagle High School in Idaho, where he coached teenagers much like the one he had been.

Before any of that, Devey spent two years on a church mission in Costa Rica. He came home and walked on at Snow College in Utah in 2009, playing multiple positions before transferring to the University of Memphis in 2011. Over his two seasons with the Tigers he started all 24 games they played and took every offensive snap the team ran, 1,568 of them, closing his college career with second team All-Conference USA honors in 2012, according to Heavy.

Undrafted in 2013, Devey signed with the Baltimore Ravens before catching on with the New England Patriots' practice squad that fall. New England promoted him to the 53 man roster in 2014, and he started four of the seven games he played that season at guard. When the Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX that February, Devey held a Super Bowl ring as a reserve lineman, inactive for the game itself but a champion all the same, according to Yahoo Sports.

His career carried him on from New England to the San Francisco 49ers and then to the Kansas City Chiefs, who claimed him off waivers in 2016. Devey spent three seasons in Kansas City, appearing in 17 games with four starts at guard and center, before closing out his playing days with the Las Vegas Raiders and the Buffalo Bills. Across seven NFL seasons he played in 44 regular season games and started 21 of them.

News of his death drew tributes from former teammates. Chiefs receiver Chris Conley wrote, "Sending love and praying for peace," and former offensive line teammate Cam Erving posted, "Sending love and light! Praying for peace in this difficult time."

When his playing career ended, Devey and his wife, Linsey, settled in Eagle, Idaho, where he began volunteering as a coach for his children's teams and for athletes at Eagle High School. Earlier in 2026 the school named him its offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, putting him on a sideline full time for the first time since Memphis. He was also active in his church community, where he offered counsel and friendship to people who needed it, according to a fundraiser organized on his family's behalf.

Devey is survived by Linsey and their four children. In the days after his death, she wrote: "Today would have been our 15th year anniversary. You were our hero and our hearts ache in your absence. We love you. We miss you."

The record is concrete: a junior college walk-on who became a Super Bowl champion, and a football program in Eagle, Idaho, that he was still building when he died. The players he coached inherited a line coach who had started at right guard in a championship season and chose, afterward, to spend his time teaching Idaho teenagers the same game. Linsey and their four children carry the rest of what he built.