HOUSTON -- When Julian Edelman left the Patriots locker room, long after the last piece of confetti had fallen to celebrate his team's Super Bowl LI victory, he wore a scally cap and chewed on an unlit cigar as he made his way toward the team's after-party.
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"I believed," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Players slowly trickled out from their temporary home inside NRG Stadium on Sunday, heading into a reality where they would be forever recognized as part of a team that put together the largest comeback in Super Bowl history.
They were, for the most part, deliriously joyful.
Nate Ebner strolled side-by-side with Josh McDaniels, smiling wide, donning a rugby tank -- a reminder that he began his road toward a second Super Bowl ring while playing a different sport on a different continent.
New England Patriots
The special-teams ace played for the U.S. Men's Rugby Sevens Olympic team in Rio this summer, missing most of Patriots training camp, forcing him to get up to speed on the fly with teammates who'd been playing in pads for weeks.
"For me at that time, it was getting back into shape and obviously thinking football," Ebner said. "That's what they asked of me, and that's what I did. I believed in the process, we found some wins, had a decent year, and now we're here . . .
"I just believed we'd find a way. I truly think that every single other guy on that team believed we would find a way. We knew we just needed a play to get us going, and Dont'a [Hightower] did that. We fed off of that. The whole team fed off of that. And Julian's catch? I mean what was that? That was unbelievable. It's just a great group to be a part of, man."
James Develin seemed to still be catching his breath as he strolled through the bowels of the stadium.
"We knew if we kept fighting, kept punching, then we might have a shot," he said. "We never stopped believing, and I'm glad we didn't."
Develin laughed when it was suggested to him that James White made like a fullback on his game-winning goal-line carry in overtime.
"I'm so proud of James," he said. "He's worked so diligently in the playbook, all the time, and he earned every bit of his successes out there."
Though the Patriots were down 21-3 at halftime, Patriots safety Duron Harmon said the locker room was still relatively calm. They knew, he said, that if they could string together positive plays one after the next, they'd be OK.
They did, and they were.
"I'm on cloud nine," he said, walking hand-in-hand with his son Christopher.
Joe Thuney and Ted Karras smiled ear-to-ear when they emerged from the locker room, while McDaniels, Matt Patricia and Nick Caserio plotted where they'd celebrate.
Malcolm Mitchell was a bit more subdued when he took off into the night, munching on a to-go plate of chicken wings.
He'd just reeled in six catches for 70 yards in the biggest game of his life. One came late in the fourth quarter when he fell and got back to his feet before Tom Brady's pass got to him. On the next play, Edelman made the catch that has since been etched into every football fan's memory forever.
As Mitchell strolled patiently toward the team bus, though, he remembered a moment from two weeks ago back at Gillette Stadium. He'd dealt with some drops at practice that he admitted were probably due to him over-thinking his preparation for the Super Bowl. Brady sensed it and sought him out. Focus on a play at a time, Brady told him.
The message was simple, but simple worked, and Mitchell left the stadium a champion.