James Develin faced the Eagles in Super Bowl LII. Now he’s selling smoothies to Birds fans down the shore

James Develin was raised in Gilbertsville, Pa., on the voice of Merrill Reese and the mystique of Brian Dawkins, “Weapon X.” But in the wake of Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4, 2018, he felt sad.

There was good reason for this. The fullback was in his sixth season with the New England Patriots. He’d won two Lombardi trophies, in the 2014 and 2016 seasons, and was eager to add a third.

But the Eagles were a team possessed. They were dominant in the trenches. Bursts of offense came from unlikely contributors. Backup quarterback Nick Foles had the game of his life.

Develin returned home a few days later to a barrage of clips from the Super Bowl parade. Hoagie shops started selling sandwiches called “Philly Special” and “Philly Philly.”

Every Wawa had championship T-shirts on display. Develin couldn’t even get his coffee without being reminded of the worst loss of his career.

“Losing that one … you were so close, and now you know exactly what the Eagles are enjoying," Develin said. “And you’re home, watching them doing it, right outside your front door. Man, that was tough.”

Life has gotten easier since then. Develin retired in 2020, but won a third Super Bowl with New England before that. He began to pursue a career in business.

He and his wife, Jenny, grew up together and decided to stay in the area. They moved to Collegeville and got a place down the Shore. In 2021, Develin purchased Soulberri, a smoothie shop in Brigantine where he was a frequent customer.

The longtime Patriot is not your typical athlete-turned-entrepreneur. During the summer, he’s at Soulberri every day. When Develin added a location in Ocean City in 2023, it was he and general manager Ryan Bonanni who built it from the ground up.

Develin handles payroll. He sands and stains mahogany wood benches. He plants flowers and paints walls. There is no task too small for the former fullback.

“He doesn’t like to sit around,” said Bonanni. “He’s hands on.”

It has been an interesting and atypical career path, one that is not short on irony. Eight years after Super Bowl LII, Develin is selling açai bowls and dairy-free ice cream to people who actively rooted against him.

But the former Patriot has embraced this.

“Every once in a while, someone driving yells, ‘Go Birds,’ or something,” he said. “And it could be anybody. Because 90% of the area is Eagles fans.

“And I have no qualms with that. I understand what it’s like being an Eagles fan. So I am all for it.”

It was not long ago that Develin was one of those fans.

He says he can still remember picking up hoagies on Sunday afternoons as 94.1 WIP hummed in the background. Develin’s father, Jim, lived and died with every snap, and passed his unbridled enthusiasm on to his kids.

James Jr. started following the team in the early 2000s, a successful era of Eagles football. He gravitated to the ruthlessness of Jeremiah Trotter, the dynamism of Brian Westbrook, the passion of Dawkins.

He also experienced the heartbreak. Develin was 16 years old when the Eagles made it to their second Super Bowl during the 2004 season, against none other than the Patriots. He was in his friend’s basement in Gilbertsville, watching it on a big-screen TV with some neighbors.

Develin described the aftermath as a “somber scene.”

“That game was a tough one, because it was somewhat close, and in the end, in typical Eagles fashion, they would just kind of break your heart,” Develin said. “McNabb’s throwing up. T.O comes back on the broken leg. You just wanted them to do it, but they didn’t quite have enough ammo in the gun.”

He added: “I was hating on Tom Brady and the Patriots so bad.”

After graduating from Boyertown High School in 2006, Develin attended Brown University, where he studied mechanical engineering. He played football all four years, primarily as a defensive lineman, and had success — but not enough to attract NFL attention.

Nevertheless, Develin was itching to stay in the game. The Ivy League alum had few resources to do so. No teams or agents reached out initially; Jim Ulrich of Enter-Sports Management eventually did, in late 2009, and brought Develin on as a client.

The Cleveland Browns invited him to a tryout ahead of rookie minicamp in the spring of 2010, but he was quickly cut.

Not long after that, Ulrich reached out to longtime former Cowboys scout Jim Garrett, who lived in Monmouth County, N.J., and was the father of then-Cowboys assistant Jason Garrett. Ulrich asked if Develin could have a workout.

The Eagles-loving Develin family had mixed feelings about this.

“I remember my dad making a comment, like, ‘Man, I want you to succeed, I want you to get in the NFL, but if it’s the Cowboys … man, that might be a tough sell,’” Develin recalled.

But Develin’s first gig in professional football would come not with Dallas but the Yard Dogs of the Arena Football League, a team that paid $200 per week ($400 for active players).

Develin lasted just over a month, playing in only one game in 2010. Later that year, he tried out for the Florida Tuskers of the United Football League, and earned a spot as a backup fullback, a position he’d never played with regularity.

The team’s starting fullback developed vertigo, and all of a sudden, the rookie found himself playing every week. NFL teams began to call.

He bounced around practice squads, from the Cincinnati Bengals in 2010 and 2011, to the Patriots in 2012, before finding a permanent home in New England.

By 2013, Develin was appearing in every game. He was now teammates with the quarterback he derided from a Gilbertsville basement in 2004, and realized that Brady wasn’t a “cry baby,” like he’d originally thought.

“When I got there in 2012, I was a practice squad guy,” Develin said. “I had a tumultuous journey, playing in two different leagues, changing my position, and doing the whole thing. He didn’t know me from anybody.

“I could have been there one day, and gone the next. But he gave me the time of day, introduced himself, and said, ‘Hey, we’re happy to have you.’”

The Patriots re-signed him in the summer of 2015. By 2018, Develin had a Pro Bowl appearance, 81 regular-season games and 10 playoff games behind him.

When it became apparent that Philadelphia would be his opponent in the Super Bowl, his heart sank.

“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Develin said. “Do I have to play the team I grew up idolizing?’”

The Develins had about 30 family members in attendance at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. James was able to get tickets, but so was Jenny, who had a cousin who worked for the Eagles at the time.

They were not all donning Patriots gear. The fullback estimated that of the group of 30, about 25 people were in green and white. Some tried to be diplomatic.

“There were a couple cousins who wouldn’t wear Pats stuff, but they didn’t want to wear Eagles stuff to disrespect me, so they’d wear my college jersey,” he said. “The only person to ever wear a Brown University jersey to an NFL game.”

In the first quarter, after the Eagles went up 3-0, the Patriots started driving down the field. They had second-and-4 from the Eagles’ 8-yard line, and Develin was tasked with blocking Nigel Bradham.

He’d blocked Bradham before, when Bradham was with the Buffalo Bills, and felt confident he’d be able to do it again. But on this night, the linebacker was more explosive than ever.

Bradham beat Develin across his face and tackled running back James White for no gain. It’s a moment the Gilbertsville native thinks about often. If he’d made that block, perhaps the Patriots wouldn’t have had to settle for a field goal.

“Man, if I had just made that block, would it all have been different?” he mused. “Would I have had to sit around and watch Jason Kelce’s Mummers speech for the next two months?

“It is such a such an Eagles fan thing to happen. I had a front-row seat to them winning their first one, but I’ll never be able to really enjoy it, because it was at my expense.”

After Develin retired in early 2020, he decided to take a year off. He enrolled in business classes through the NFLPA, and eventually ended up working for the players’ trust, as a liaison between the union and its members.

He and Jenny and their four kids spent the pandemic at their shore house in Brigantine. They fell in love with the quiet beach town. It wasn’t too congested, even during summer holidays.

Life was simpler, almost by necessity; Develin said there was “pretty much one of everything” on the island.

“It became our little haven,” he said. “I just fell in love with the speed of life down there. Even in the winter, going down there, and just the small-town feel.”

A mutual friend introduced Develin to the owner of Soulberri, Will White, who was looking to sell the business. Develin bought it in October of 2021, and dove right in.

The cadence was completely different from what Develin was used to. Instead of getting ready for minicamp in the spring, and training camp in the summer, he was now on Soulberri time, figuring out when to apply for a mercantile license, and pay for insurance.

But he was a quick study, and made it clear that he was willing to learn. Even before Develin became owner, he had one of Soulberri’s long-tenured employees give him a tutorial.

She walked him through every station, from washing the dishes, to filling the blender, to topping off the açai bowls. It was a busy weekend, but the former fullback wanted to try a shift himself.

So he got behind the counter, and worked for a few hours.

“It was chaotic,” he said. “I didn’t know the recipes, so I felt like I was holding everything up. But I started to get the hang of it.”

Every now and then, locals will ask if he’s the “football player,” but it doesn’t come up often. And now that Develin is back in the area, he has rekindled his Eagles fandom.

His kids wear their father’s jersey, but also Dawkins’ and Reggie White’s. They’ve watched “Weapon X” highlights over bowls of cereal.

Now that Develin has more free time, he is teaching them the unabridged history of the franchise, including “deep cuts” like former quarterbacks Ty and Koy Detmer.

“So they understand that it wasn’t always the Eagles going to Super Bowls,” he said. “There were a lot of lean years, too. But we’ve had good players, so respect the team and understand what your fanhood means.

“I loved growing up here. That’s why I came back here. That’s why I want to raise my kids around here. Even though I won a lot of games as a Patriot, I still have a lot of respect and loyalty to this area.”