Twenty-five years ago, stem cell research was still in its infancy. Health records were only just going from paper to computer. Telehealth was nonexistent.
Today, people are living longer, doctors are conducting surgeries from across the world, and we can get diagnoses and order prescriptions online, without ever having to enter a doctor’s office.
Yet, for all these advancements, the health care industry remains stuck in an incentive structure that encourages – and even rewards – practitioners for over-testing or pushing unnecessary treatments. Technology is improving the accuracy and efficacy of treatment, but bureaucratic precedence often wins.
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We need a better approach.
Value-based healthcare — in which health care providers are paid based on outcomes, not services rendered — may be the answer.
This “quality over quantity” model can make health care more effective and more affordable (a much-needed change, considering health care costs in the U.S. skyrocketed to $3.65 trillion last year). If done right, it can incentivize doctors to provide quality care and cut back on over-testing, and empower patients to take control of their wellness. And it can address physician and caregiver shortages and unburden health care by making it easier for the millions of Americans to age in their homes rather than be institutionalized.
As consumers and leaders in the public and private sectors look to the future of health care, we must keep in mind what's on the technological horizon that will help bring this future to life. Advancements in digital health address some of the most pressing global issues of our generation, including opioid dependence, mental illness and chronic disease.
CES 2020 — the world’s largest, most influential technology event — will showcase hundreds of the newest technologies poised to disrupt the health care industry. Companies including Philips, Omron Healthcare, Myant, P&G, Cigna, Humana and Johnson & Johnson will present their newest products and cutting-edge research. And CES will partner with the American College of Cardiology Foundation to offer continuing medical education (CME) credits to doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to highlight tech innovations creating solutions for patient care.
Here are some of the technologies you’ll see at CES 2020 this January that can help make value-based care a reality:
Remote patient monitoring
Remote patient monitoring technology makes earlier diagnoses, better outcomes and cost savings available to more and more patients. According to a recent CTA survey, two in three physicians intend to use remote patient monitoring technology to manage their patients’ health in the future.
With remote patient monitoring, wearables such as CarePredict’s Tempo for seniors can provide customized care such as serving as a call button, tracking food, water, and medicine intake and noting a senior’s location. Another innovation designed to help seniors is Electronic Caregiver, providing remote monitoring to ensure safety and wellness – and give family members and loved one's peace of mind. Other apps can remind diabetes patients to take their insulin or allow physicians to monitor glucose levels over time. And technology such as Omron’s blood pressure monitor can actively track heart health.
The need for increased accuracy and cost savings has driven the demand for remote monitoring from both physician and payer perspectives. Through sensor innovation and miniaturization, consumer-grade monitoring/diagnostic devices are becoming more accurate and easier to wear and use — and we’ll see smaller, less invasive and more sensitive devices this year. The cost savings of adopting these devices should easily make the requisite patient education processes worthwhile.
Digital therapeutics
Digital therapeutics are a new breed of digital health devices enabling patients with chronic disease to better adhere to treatment protocols and providing doctors with more data on the effectiveness of various treatments. Digital therapeutics can provide personalized care programs based on a patient’s needs and abilities to prevent and manage conditions and diseases — from asthma, diabetes and Alzheimer’s to hypertension, ADHD and mental health issues — and reduce reliance on certain pharmaceuticals or other therapies. One such device is a product from Carrot Inc. called Pivot, which is a smoking cessation program that uses an FDA-cleared mobile breath sensor, consumer-grade mobile app, behavioral science and personal coaching to help individuals quit smoking.
With digital therapeutics, patients can receive daily in-home physical exercises. They can track their fitness and food intake to prevent the onset of diabetes and control obesity. They can measure their blood sugar levels. And they can receive motor, speech or cognitive behavioral therapy at home, through web-based applications or digital dashboards. Other technologies can monitor sleep patterns and provide access to personalized suggestions to improve sleep. Ebb Therapeutics, for example, develops products that help patients with insomnia through temperature sensing and control.
Virtual reality
New virtual reality (VR) technologies allow doctors to better perform surgeries remotely, or train doctors on new skills with immersive training tools. Robotic surgeries, used in the right context, are increasingly more accurate and mean smaller incisions. And VR means doctors can show patients exactly how their surgeries will happen, using virtual reconstructions of their own bodies. Simulators from Samsung can help patients with pain management, and VR games help patients keep on track with their physical therapy.
Patients and doctors alike realize expensive testing and treatments with minimal (or no) results are not always worth the time, cost or pain. The future of health care is lower costs, more accessible care and better outcomes.
Value-based care will be an important step toward reducing chronic disease and improving overall wellness.
And at CES, we see the new tools and technologies poised to enhance the patient experience and transform the future of health care.
Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer technology companies.
Bernie Sanders suffered “modest heart muscle damage” during his recent heart attack but has since recovered well and is fit enough for the rigors of the presidential campaign and the White House should he win it, according to letters released Monday by his primary care physician and two cardiologists.
The 78-year-old Vermont senator is the oldest candidate in the 2020 presidential race and had vowed to release detailed medical records by the end of the year. His campaign did so the day before New Year’s Eve, and the letters provide the most detail it has given to date showing that Sanders received prompt treatment to reopen his clogged artery with stents following his heart attack, which occurred while he campaigned in Las Vegas on Oct. 1.
After a first heart attack, standard questions include the likelihood of another and whether the heart’s muscle was damaged badly enough to trigger later heart failure. While his heart was damaged, Sanders has had no other symptoms, his blood pressure and heart rate are “in optimal ranges,” and his heart is functioning normally, with the ability to exercise “well above average,” wrote his cardiologist, Dr. Martin LeWinter, of the University of Vermont Medical Center.
The key test to show that was a treadmill exercise test in which doctors watch for signs of trouble during strong exertion. Sanders’ exercise capacity this month was “average” for a healthy man his age without heart disease, and he was able to exercise to a level about 50% higher than men his age who do have heart disease, wrote University of Vermont cardiac rehabilitation chief Dr. Philip Ades and exercise physiologist Patrick Savage in a separate letter.
“At this point, I see no reason he cannot continue campaigning without limitation and, should he be elected, I am confident he has the mental and physical stamina to fully undertake the rigors of the presidency,” LeWinter wrote, also noting that Sanders had made an “uneventful” recovery from his heart attack.
JACKSONVILLE – Doug Marrone made his feelings clear.
“I know in my heart I can take this team to better roads and can do a better job,” the Jaguars’ head coach said Tuesday.
As he and General Manager Dave Caldwell see it, traveling those roads – improving on back-to-back double-digit-loss seasons – starts with improved communication and other organizational changes. They were major topics Tuesday when Caldwell and Marrone met with the media hours after Owner Shad Khan announced both will return in their roles in 2020.
The most obvious change became official early Tuesday, when Khan in a statement said Caldwell and Marrone will report directly to ownership. Caldwell and Marrone during the past three seasons reported to Tom Coughlin, who was relieved of his duties as Executive Vice President of Football Operations on December 18,
“The biggest thing is regardless of what the past was, moving forward I’m going to have a direct line to Shad – sort of like I did earlier,” said Caldwell, the Jaguars’ general manager since 2013. “This structure here will allow us to communicate directly with the owner and be able to put our plan forward in a collaborated effort.”
Marrone on Tuesday said the organization will be evaluated – with potential changes – in any area that directly contacts football.
“If it was as easy as saying, ‘Let’s take one area and this is the only area, this is the only issue…’ when you perform like that as a football team that falls on everyone,” Marrone said. “And everyone has to be accountable for that.
“When you’re looking and talking about, ‘How does that change?’ It comes from everywhere.”
When Marrone was asked what will be done to improve next season, he discussed at length the need to look beyond personnel and scheme.
“There’s a lot more to it – meaning availability of players, training of players, acquisition of players, schematics that we’re doing coaching wise,” Marrone said.
Marrone midway through the availability emphasized increased communication between coaching and personnel.
“What we’ve talked about doing is making sure it’s not just the individuals able to communicate directly with each other,” Marrone said. “We’re talking about taking our coaching staff with our coaching staff with our scouting staff and really putting it in a true, true partnership where we’re meeting, talking and doing that and coming to decisions.
“When we do that, things become clearer on exactly what the vision is that we want.”
Marrone said his responsibility on that front will be to make clear the philosophy of how the Jaguars want to play defensively offensively and on special teams – and to communicate that clearly to scouting “and really come to focus as one.”
“My experience with that is 97 percent of the time you’re going to be able to come up with a decision that’s best for the organization,” Marrone said. “On those times we may be different on it, Dave and I have the ability to try to work it out and if not, we have the ability to bring it to Shad.”
Caldwell agreed, “My feeling at the places I’ve been that have had success … when you have thoughtful processes in place with the coaches, scouts and ownership … you generally make better decisions.
“I’m not saying that’s the way it was in the past, but some of the ideas that Shad, Tony [Khan], myself and Doug have come up with our coaching staff and our personal staff – and how we’re going to go about this in February, March and April, I think it’s something where everybody in the organization’s going to be on the same page and everybody’s going to be moving forward.”
Marrone said conversations with the Khans and Caldwell in recent weeks focused on self-evaluation in many areas – coaching, on-field schematics (offense, defense and special teams), penalties, personnel, training, treatment and other elements of the support staff. Marrone said he would discuss some of these areas more publicly as the offseason progresses.
“Those are things that obviously we have not done a very good job of these past two years that we have to work together to get done,” he said. “I talked to everyone about those plans, and we’re actually going ahead and moving forward right now to get those things in place. …
“There are points I have laid out to Shad and Tony and obviously Dave of where I think we need to go to do a better job of that and have an opportunity to get this thing where we all want it.”
Marrone added, “I have a clear vision of the type of communication I want with our players with different heads of the organization – meaning the people who are touching them. We can do a better job there and create a better environment. …
“There are a lot of things that are going to be looked at, and there are a lot of things I know I can get done with some of the changes that are going to be made to do a better job for the players and the coaches.”
The old adage that defense wins championships is true, but more often it wins games. Such was the case for the Vanderbilt Commodores on Monday night as their defense and just enough free-throw shooting keyed them to a 76-71 win over the Davidson Wildcats.
The Commodore built a 56-32 lead early into the second half powered by a solid defensive effort through the first 25 minutes of the game. The Wildcats, however, would not go quietly.
Thanks in part to an inexplicable shooting slump from the Commodores that saw them go the final 13:09 of the game without making a field goal, the Wildcats were able to claw their way to within striking distance in the closing minutes as they were able to connect on 10 of 18 three-point shots in the final half.
Despite that, the Commodores defense managed to force the Wildcats into their second-most turnovers in a game this season (15) including four in the final five minutes that helped Vanderbilt hole on despite their lack of scoring from the floor.
Head coach Jerry Stackhouse spoke of the team's defensive efforts and the free-throw shooting in his post=game comments. The Commodores as a team missed 12 in the game despite going 25-37 overall. It was their highest number of made free-throw shots in a single game so far this season.
Defensively the Commodores held Davidson to just 42,1% shooting in the game, 24-75 as the defense continually forced the Wildcats into bad shots despite their production from behind the arc.
Free throw shooting has, and likely will continue to be an issue for this team, and one which Stackhouse says his players are putting in the work to improve. Still, leaving 12 points at the line, while not fatal in this one, will more than likely come back to bite them as the conference schedule begins after the new year.
The Commodores kick-off the New Year Jan.4 when they host the SMU Mustangs at Memorial Gym. Tipoff is set for 7 pm.
FOX Business' Gerri Willis talks about the craft beer obsession in America and international beer expert Stephen Beaumont discusses the movement for bigger breweries buying smaller operations.
Just before a key tax break was set to expire, lawmakers and President Trump gave the alcohol industry a present for the holidays.
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The president signed a bill earlier this month that will extend certain tax provisions — initially enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — through the end of 2020.
Known as the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, the legislation halves a $7 tax on the first 60,000 barrels of beer from domestic producers that make under 2 million barrels during the calendar year. Instead of $7, eligible producers will pay an alcohol excise tax rate of $3.50 per barrel.
It also reduces the federal excise tax to $16 per barrel on the first 6 million barrels for all other larger brewers and beer importers, from $18. For all barrels over 6 million the rate will return to $18.
For distillers, it reduced the federal excise tax on the first 100,000 proof gallons to $2.70 from $13.50.
For small- and medium-sized wineries, excise tax rate, which vary based on alcohol content and carbonation level, were reduced by as much as 70 percent, according to the Wine Institute.
Excise taxes are levied in addition to other corporate taxes.
The American Craft Spirits Association said that without the tax break, the distilled spirits industry, which has historically paid higher rates than beer and wine producers, faced a 400 percent increase.
“In a political climate that is arguably more divided than ever, we applaud Congress for working together on both sides of the aisle to support our community of 2,000 small businesses and do what is vitally important to keep our industry growing,” Margie A.S. Lehrman, CEO of the American Craft Spirits Association said in a statement.
The Beer Institute also applauded the measure, saying it allows companies to continue growing and reinvesting in their businesses, which includes hiring more workers.
There has been a push among many lobby groups across the beer, wine and distilled spirit sectors to make the tax breaks permanent.
On Dec. 23, 2000, someone mailed the Beverly Hills Police Department a single sheet of spiral notebook paper, across which were printed an address and a word in big block letters: “cadaver.”
The address belonged to Susan Berman, who was shot and killed at her home the same day the note was sent. Police found her body the next day, but it would be another 15 years before a suspect was arrested: Robert Durst, a real estate scion who has been dogged by murder suspicions for nearly four decades.
Mr. Durst, who is scheduled to face trial in February, has long insisted that he did not kill Ms. Berman, one of his closest friends, and did not write what has become known as the “cadaver note.”
In 2015, he told the producers of “The Jinx,” an HBO documentary that turned his story into a national sensation, that the writer of the note had taken a “big risk” because it was something “that only the killer could have written.”
His defense lawyers have repeatedly tried to block testimony from forensic document examiners who say the handwriting on the note matches Mr. Durst’s. The judge in the case also rejected the lawyers’ attempt to identify Ms. Berman’s personal manager as the author of the note and the killer. Then, in a court document filed on Christmas Eve, the lawyers suddenly reversed course, acknowledging that Mr. Durst was the author of the note.
It is the first time that either Mr. Durst or his lawyers have conceded that he was in Ms. Berman’s home, or even in Los Angeles, around the time that someone put a 9-millimeter handgun to the back of her head and fired, killing her instantly. But they continue to deny that Mr. Durst, a millionaire who will turn 77 during the trial, was involved in her murder.
“Bob didn’t kill Susan Berman, and he doesn’t know who did,” said Dick DeGuerin, Mr. Durst’s lead defense lawyer, in an interview.
Mr. Durst has been in jail since 2015, when he was arrested in New Orleans and charged with Ms. Berman’s murder just hours before the final episode of “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” aired on HBO. The authorities said they suspected that he was about to flee the country.
The upcoming trial, which could last as long as five months, is expected to refocus the media spotlight on the long, complicated story of Mr. Durst, once considered the heir apparent to a vast New York real estate empire. Already, NBC’s Dateline, ABC’s 20/20 and CNN Headline News are planning episodes.
The police in Los Angeles found Ms. Berman’s body in 2000 after neighbors notified them that her back door was ajar and her terriers were running free. There was no sign of forced entry. Nothing had been taken, and no fingerprints or DNA were found from the killer.
Prosecutors contend that Mr. Durst killed Ms. Berman because he feared that she was about to tell the authorities what she knew about the 1982 disappearance and murder of Mr. Durst’s first wife, Kathie McCormack Durst, in New York, five months before she would have graduated from medical school.
Ms. Berman, who friends say was fiercely loyal to Mr. Durst, was his spokeswoman and media adviser at the time. Prosecutors and witnesses say she also made a critical call while posing as Kathie Durst that redirected New York police detectives away from the actual crime scene and hobbled the investigation.
The “cadaver note” that arrived at the Beverly Hills police department became a key piece of evidence in Ms. Berman’s death. After clearing various suspects, the Los Angeles police got a court order in 2002 for handwriting samples from Mr. Durst to compare with the block lettering on the note.
By then, Mr. Durst was in jail in Galveston, Texas, charged with the killing and dismembering of Morris Black, a man who had lived across the hall from him. The two men became friendly after Mr. Durst left New York in 2000, when the authorities reopened the investigation into his wife’s disappearance.
Mr. Durst testified during the trial in 2003 that he and Mr. Black had struggled over Mr. Durst’s gun. As they fell to the floor, the gun went off, Mr. Durst said. He told the jury that he had resorted to dismemberment because he thought no one would believe it was self-defense. The jury acquitted him.
With the murder investigations in Los Angeles and New York stalled, Mr. Durst could have laid low, but in 2010 he made a decision to talk to journalists and filmmakers. He gave the producers of “The Jinx” access to his private papers, urged friends to talk to them and gave them more than 20 hours of filmed interviews.
The producers discovered new evidence, including a letter that Mr. Durst had written to Ms. Berman in 1999. In her address on the envelope, he had misspelled the first word in Beverly Hills as “Beverley.” The address on the envelope of the cadaver note included the same misspelling, in similar lettering, with the first word of the Beverly Hills Police Department written as “Beverley.”
“The Jinx” filmmakers confronted Mr. Durst with the earlier letter and its similarities, but he denied writing the cadaver note.
Although his lawyers now acknowledge that his denial wasn’t true, a legal brief they filed in August indicates that they will likely argue that the note could have been written by someone other than Ms. Berman’s killer. “What the note demonstrates is that the person who mailed it was aware that there was a body at the house, not that the individual murdered Susan Berman,” the brief stated.
In interviews in 2015 and 2016 with The New York Times, one of Mr. Durst’s friends, who requested anonymity out of fear of legal entanglements in the case, said Mr. Durst had privately acknowledged finding Ms. Berman’s lifeless body when he went to her home on Dec. 23, 2000, and did not want her dogs to gnaw on it. But he fled after writing and mailing the cadaver note because he did not think anyone would believe he was innocent, the friend said.
But Mr. Durst also told John Lewin, the Deputy District Attorney, the filmmakers and his godson, Howard Altman, something very different. “The person who wrote the note killed her,” Mr. Altman said, recalling Mr. Durst’s words while he was in jail in Galveston.
Asked about those statements by his client, Mr. DeGuerin replied: “He said a lot of things that I don’t think are correct.”
Traffic snakes past downtown Seattle on Interstate 5. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
It was a big 2019 for startups across the Pacific Northwest.
Venture capital dollars flowed into the region at record pace, minting several new unicorns — companies valued at more than $1 billion — and fueling growth for a flurry of other early-stage startups.
Nearly $4 billion went to startups based in the Pacific Northwest, according to GeekWire’s funding deal tracker. A big chunk of that went to fast-growing unicorns such as Convoy, Outreach, Auth0, Icertis, and others who remain atop the GeekWire 200, our ranking of the Pacific Northwest’s privately held tech startups.
But investor cash doesn’t tell the whole story of the bubbling activity in the region.
In between it all, there were a bevy of early-stage startups — many led by veterans of local tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft — working away at their potentially game-changing ideas that could be the region’s next Expedia, Zillow, or Tableau.
A year of big deals
From left: GeekWire co-founder John Cook, Auth0 CEO Eugenio Pace, Convoy CEO Dan Lewis, and Outreach CEO Manny Medina, (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong)
This year saw seven deals in excess of $100 million, compared to four last year. These deals alone totaled $1.44 billion in investment in the Pacific Northwest’s top startups.
On-demand trucking startup Convoy led the way, raising a massive $400 million round at a $2.7 billion valuation in November. It was the biggest round in for a Seattle-area company in more than a decade and brought total funding for the company to $668 million.
Here are the other major deals of 2019:
Vacasa: The Portland, Ore.-based vacation rental platform raised $319 million in October.
Clio: The Vancouver, B.C.-based company aims to infuse law firms with technology and raised $250 million in September.
Remitly: One of Seattle’s top startups that uses mobile technology to help people send and receive money across borders, including immigrants who support families back home. Remitly raised $220 million in July, including $135 million in equity and $85 million in debt.
Icertis: The Bellevue, Wash. contract management startup joined the unicorn club in July when it raised $115 million.
Outreach: Another new unicorn, the sales automation startup reeled in a huge $114 million round in April.
Auth0: The startup that helps developers build identity authentication capabilities into their applications raised $103 million.
Waiting in the wings
(Blokable Photo)
If you’re a GeekWire newsletter subscriber, you’ve likely heard about the high-valued companies above. But which startups are waiting in the unicorn wings, set for major success in the coming years?
Real estate is also a theme for the Pacific Northwest tech scene, anchored by longtime industry leaders Zillow and Redfin. Startups including Crowdstreet, Modus, Flyhomes, Blokable, Knock, and Pro.com all raised capital this year.
And you can’t talk about the Seattle tech industry without mentioning Amazon. Much like veterans of Microsoft have done over the past several decades, Amazon is slowly but surely spawning entrepreneurs who are taking lessons learned and spinning out their own startups across industries such as retail, logistics, and media. Some examples of newer Seattle companies led by Amazon vets include Ideoclick; Shipium; Downstream; Spiral; Veeve; and others.
Women-led startups
Stacy Flynn of Evrnu touts her textiles as an answer to environmental waste in the garment industry at the GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong)
Companies with all leadership teams made up entirely of women raised $3.3 billion nationwide in 2019, according to PitchBook. That may sound like a lot, but it represents a paltry 2.8 percent of all VC funding across the U.S., reflecting ongoing challenges of bias and inequality in the larger world of investing and venture capital.
The numbers are a little better when looking at startups with at least one woman co-founder. In 2018, these companies raised $46.3 billion, more than double the prior year, or roughly 18 percent of VC funds invested nationally, per PitchBook data. It doesn’t look like we will see a similar jump this year, as companies with at least one woman leader raised $18.7 billion through the end of August.
At the beginning of the year, we reported that 16 companies on the GeekWire 200, our ranking of the top Pacific Northwest tech startups, are led by women, or 8 percent. That’s a little better than the larger business world, where women made up 5 percent (24 CEOs) of the annual Fortune 500 list in 2018, down from an all-time high of 32 women CEOs on the 2017 list.
Last year, DreamBox Learning, led by the Big Tech CEO of the Year winner at the 2019 GeekWire Awards Jessie Woolley Wilson, raised $130 million in one of the biggest rounds of 2018.
Here are a few other notable deals for women-led startups in the Pacific Northwest in 2019:
In January, Seattle startup Modumetalreeled in a $14 million investment round led by Vulcan Capital to scale up production of a unique metal that the company says offers better performance at a cheaper price than conventional steel.
High-tech clothing rental startup Armoire completed a $3.9 million seed round in June and at the same time scooped up a new 7,500 square-foot office in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood that serves as headquarters, warehouse, and retail space all in one.
Evrnu makes technology that takes discarded consumer apparel waste and converts it into renewable fiber. The startup raised $9.1 million in October and is licensing its technology to companies like Levi’s, Adidas, and Target.
In October, IOTAS, a Portland, Ore.-based startup that helps landlords install and manage smart home devices raised $8.5 million.
１．2020年に仕事を通して実現したいこと
ESD for 2030のスタートの年として、学校関係者のみならず、社会の多様なステークホルダーと「教育」の位置づけについての共通理解を深め、ゴールの共有とその実現に向けた協働システムの構築を目指します。
※ESD：Education for Sustainable Development
１．2020年に仕事を通して実現したいこと
2020年は、地元・横浜のサーキュラーエコノミー推進に向けて様々な皆様と協働しながらプロジェクトの可視化・創発・発信に取り組んでいきます。また、IDEAS FOR GOODでは「Turn Ideas into Action」をテーマに具体的なアクションを増やしていきます。
THE VENN DIAGRAM of men who are professional cornerbacks and men who deeply enjoy talking about themselves is very nearly just one circle on top of another circle. But there is, toward the bottom of the diagram, a tiny sliver of arc where the lines bend and the overlap gets a little bit blurry, and that is where you find Stephon Gilmore.
Now, Gilmore is trying. Over the past year, he has heard from everyone, including his own wife, that he needs to open his mouth. It is time, they say. It is necessary. So Gilmore is grudgingly dipping his toe into the shallow pool of self-promotion.
"Honestly, it just doesn't feel right," he says to me at one point during a recent conversation, describing the sensation that comes with praising himself as "weird" and "bizarre." He likened its aftermath to a "burning" in his stomach. "I don't think it will ever feel normal," he says. "I'm not sure I want it to either."
Gilmore's general reticence is authentic. Tyrod Taylor, a former teammate in Buffalo, recalls Gilmore as "literally the quietest" player he has known in the NFL. Sammy Watkins, another former teammate, says Gilmore doesn't talk much trash on the field -- "because he doesn't talk at all." When Devin McCourty, the Patriots' defensive captain, is asked what role Gilmore fills during the daily banter sessions among New England's defensive backs, McCourty looks flummoxed. "Well, he laughs when other people say something funny," he finally offers.
Gilmore's on-field credentials are impeccable: He had six interceptions in the regular season, tied for the most in the league. He has returned more interceptions for touchdowns (two) than he has allowed to receivers (one). He is a magician, turning the NFL's top pass-catchers into tiny rabbits that vanish inside his hat; earlier this season, he faced Amari Cooper, Odell Beckham Jr. and JuJu Smith-Schuster, allowing the trio just 11 catches and 130 yards combined.
In a somewhat underwhelming (by Patriots standards) 12-4 season in which the offense was less than its typically explosive self, Gilmore's reliability was staggering. And that constancy is what ultimately convinced him he needs to speak up, if only to make a statement on behalf of "all the other quiet guys" who get overlooked because they're not the brassiest.
To be clear: Gilmore is doing it on his terms. The godfather of the showman/shutdown corner is Deion Sanders, who had his own dance move, the "Primetime" nickname, an abundance of flashy clothes and a litany of antics that included once showing up to training camp in a Mercedes-Benz golf cart. Behind him is a long line of corners who would almost never hesitate to spew an entertaining sermon of self-promotion in full Deion fashion: Ty Law, Richard Sherman, Josh Norman, Aqib Talib, Jalen Ramsey and many, many more.
Gilmore, for his part, is fairly certain he'll never dance on the field. He mostly keeps his promotion to the relative soundlessness of social media (he often just reposts other people's compliments). When I meet him in Foxborough, he walks up wearing wind pants and the sort of duck boots your dad might wear to shovel the driveway.
"Do you think you're the best corner in the NFL?" I ask, and he hesitates, just for a second. But the questions come more frequently these days, and Gilmore has decided that -- however awkward it might feel -- he must talk (at least a little).
Are you the best corner in the NFL?
"Yes," he says.
GILMORE MET HIS wife, Gabrielle, when they were both student-athletes at South Carolina (Gabby ran track). It took about a month of Gabby trying different topics before Gilmore actually began talking to her, she says, but they fell in love and now have two children: Sebastian, who is 4, and Gisele, who is 2.
The Gilmore kids, according to their mother, "do not chill." They have "a different kind of motor" than the standard toddler, which generally results in them "destroying the playroom" on a daily basis.
Gabby says she and her husband have different strategies when it comes to playing defense against this wiggly, adorable hurry-up offense. "If it's happening, I'm sort of freaking out, running in there, trying to stop them from taking out another toy when there are like 50 toys already on the floor."
Gilmore, however, prefers to stand back from the mayhem. "His patience is ridiculous," she says. "He doesn't get upset, and he doesn't jump in. He's literally like, 'Sebastian -- please put the toy back in the box.' He just, like, waits. I don't know how he does it."
This is consistent with Gilmore's overall philosophy: Chaos should be bypassed in favor of a focused, steady plan with a clearly defined end result. The goal -- whether it is more interceptions or fewer dump trucks on the rug -- is always in view.
In high school, that meant seeking out a math tutor on his own because Gilmore had decided there was no way he was going to be sent to junior college. At South Carolina, it meant switching positions -- Gilmore actually came up as a quarterback -- because it was clear he was more likely to make the pros on defense. When he arrived in the NFL, it meant dialing back on heavy weights work in favor of focusing on explosiveness and his back-pedaling technique, which he knew would be necessary as the league became more and more fixated on passing.
And then, when he signed with the Patriots in 2017, it meant never relaxing or letting down, not even in walk-throughs. Not even if it meant drawing the ire of the Patriots' veterans.
McCourty recalls, somewhat gleefully, one of the very first walk-throughs Gilmore participated in with New England. Generally, the defense lays back in these workouts, allowing the offense to script out a few plays and make some easy completions. "I remember Tom [Brady] threw the first one over and Steph jumped in and picked it," McCourty says. "Then he threw another one over -- like, real easy, expecting it to be simple as it always was -- and Steph broke it up again."
McCourty giggles. "Tom and Jules [Julian Edelman] were pissed."
Gilmore's explanation is simply that he never wants to give up a repetition, never wants to pass on an opportunity to train his brain. It makes sense when you realize that Gilmore's overriding on-field strategy is the same one he brings to parenting his kids: patience. Over the past few years, while working with trainer Jeremy Boone and veteran cornerback Dre Bly in the offseason, Gilmore has refined a playing style that resembles the methodology that puzzle masters use to tackle a sudoku.
In the same way that the puzzler uses a process of elimination to cross out a number once it becomes clear that the digit can't be the answer for a specific box, Gilmore comes to the line of scrimmage for each play and quickly processes all the evidence in front of him. He has a list, as he puts it, "of a lot of little things that add up to something bigger." Where is the receiver on the field? What down and distance is it? What defense are his teammates in and, more important, how does that look to the quarterback? Which way is the receiver leaning? As the answers pour into his head, he mentally crosses off the various routes his opponent might run until he is left with only one or two options.
It is, Gilmore says, a proactive approach instead of a reactive one. And Week 15 against the Cincinnati Bengals was the textbook example: Gilmore intercepted Andy Dalton twice, returning one for a touchdown. On each play, Gilmore knew exactly where receiver Tyler Boyd was going to run.
Take the last pick, which helped seal the Patriots' victory. Gilmore cycled through his mental checklist: A second-and-long meant the Bengals would try a quick pass to get into a more reasonable third down. The Patriots' pressure meant Dalton wouldn't have time to throw deep. Boyd's position meant he was heading to the edge of the field, not the middle.
At the snap, Gilmore simply let the route develop as he knew it would, then stepped in front of the throw to make the interception.
In general, this is why Gilmore doesn't jam receivers at the line as often as many other corners; in his view, it actually hurts him instead of helping him. Remember, chaos is to be avoided.
"If it takes them out of their route, that's bad," he says, "because most of the time I know where they're going anyway, so I don't want to get in their way."
ONE DAY LAST June, while a group of team executives and current and former Patriots were on a trip to Israel, Robert Kraft, the team's owner, pulled aside former cornerback Ty Law. Kraft had been enjoying watching Law, a Hall of Fame corner, spend time with Gilmore as they stopped at sights along the Sea of Galilee.
"You know," Kraft said into Law's ear as he nodded toward Gilmore, "he reminds me of you."
Law nodded. Part of the comparison is surely circumstantial, since Gilmore had a critical interception in the Patriots' most recent Super Bowl win and Law had one to help seal the Patriots' title in 2003. But Law sees Gilmore the same way, going as far as saying that when he watches Gilmore play, he feels as though it keeps "my legacy alive." To Law -- and, clearly, to Kraft -- Gilmore is the next in a lineage of top defensive backs who might be less famous than, say, the Patriots quarterback but are no less critical to the team's dynastic success.
Understand: Brady's durability, his arm strength, his imperviousness to pressure -- all of it is otherworldly. But it is also impossible to ignore the defensive component to his legacy. Law was the best player on the 2003 championship team. We all know the Patriots don't win Super Bowl XLIX without Malcolm Butler's last-second interception, and they certainly don't win Super Bowl LI either if the defense doesn't hold the league's top offense that year to just seven points in the second half.
In fact, according to Pro Football Reference, the Patriots' four best offensive seasons during the Belichick/Brady era produced no titles. Conversely, in two of their four best defensive seasons, they did win a title. (And, for what it's worth, their defense this season is statistically better than any of those.)
All of which is to say: Gilmore knows the history here. He wears No. 24, the same as Law and Darrelle Revis, two corners who defined generations at the position. Gilmore wanted it because so many of his favorite corners -- Law and Revis, but also Champ Bailey and Charles Woodson -- have made it one of the league's most historic numerals.
To some, that pedigree would be daunting, but Gilmore has never shied away from it, not since he took over the number from Terrence McGee, 10-year veteran and holder of multiple Bills records, during Gilmore's sophomore season in Buffalo.
Gilmore spent the first five years of his career with the Bills, dealing with a slew of different coaches and coordinators, injuries to his wrist and shoulder, and a pile of losses that left many Bills players struggling to stand out amid the wreckage.
"When a season doesn't go well, sometimes people will jump ship, but he never did," says Rex Ryan, who coached Gilmore in Buffalo. Gilmore had five interceptions and 48 combined tackles and made the Pro Bowl in 2016, even as the Bills went 7-9 and Ryan was fired. "If they were all like him, I'd still be there," Ryan adds. "I honestly think we'd have won Super Bowls."
Instead, Bill Belichick targeted Gilmore, looking to add him to a considerable personal canon of corners. Belichick came up as an assistant working with the secondary, and even before he was a head coach, he helped the Giants beat the Bills in Super Bowl XXV by relying on his defensive backs to shut down Buffalo's passing game, virtually ignoring star running back Thurman Thomas. In New England, Law and Revis were panaceas for Belichick that covered up holes elsewhere, and Gilmore now joins Revis as one of only two corners in nearly 20 years on which Belichick has bestowed jaw-dropping money (five years, $65 million).
He isn't regretting it either. When Gilmore shut down Brandin Cooks and the Patriots stifled the Rams to win the Super Bowl last season, Belichick -- who isn't exactly known for his effusiveness -- pulled Gilmore close after the final whistle and said, "That was incredible."
GABBY AND THE kids gathered around the table one afternoon in September as the family prepared to celebrate Gilmore's birthday. Gabby brought out a beautiful ice cream cake that had been iced with a sprawling Patriots logo, a giant "24" and "Happy Birthday, Stephon" written in script. The cake was gorgeous and the children clamored.
Then, in front of Gilmore, Gabby put down two salads -- one that had "Happy B-Day Stephon" written on top of it in carrot strips and another that had "Happy B-Day 24" artfully dribbled in dressing.
Yes, for his 29th birthday, Gilmore cut loose and had ... "cakes" made out of salad. ("I preferred the ice cream," Gabby says.)
Gabby wasn't surprised, though. How could she be? This is who Gilmore is, how he works. The only time Gabby has ever seen her husband drink alcohol was after the Super Bowl last season, and even then it was only because of a bet between the two of them: If the Patriots won, she got to make him take a shot. They did, so she did.
"I gave him Tito's, and he got it down," she says. "But he wasn't thrilled about it."
At this point, Gabby -- and everyone else -- knows Gilmore's commitment to his routines are well ingrained. Gabby and the children go back and forth between Massachusetts and the Charlotte area during the season, often leaving Gilmore on his own during the week; it is a situation that makes him crave more time with his kids, to be sure, but also allows him the freedom to be meticulous about how he prepares to play.
He follows the diet laid out for him by New England's trainers after they analyzed his blood work. He spends hours organizing the notebooks he keeps on every receiver he has ever faced, updating and reviewing the tendencies of his next target. He gets four massages per week, a nod to his approaching 30 and the reality that he is, by NFL standards, at least, no longer young.
He does occasionally get more involved on social media than he has in the past -- he had a brief back-and-forth with DeAndre Hopkins after the Texans-Pats game in December -- but while Gilmore's personality has blossomed a bit, his determination to avoid vanity remains resolute. Even his touchdown celebration is muted. There are no pantomimed slam dunks or elaborate dance steps here; when Gilmore ran back his pick against the Bengals, he simply stood in the end zone with his hands behind his back, staring up into the crowd.
The display, which came from a suggestion by Kyle Van Noy, was perfect, symbolizing the handcuffs Gilmore puts on other teams while also highlighting his staid, detached approach to a position generally seen as anything but.
"I know what is typical, and I know that I'm not that ..." Gilmore tells me, his voice trailing off. He looks up. "But really," he says, "why should that matter?"
It certainly doesn't to New England. In fact, some of Gilmore's teammates have even taken steps to assist in filling the void of smack-talk that one would expect to come from a lockdown corner.
Increasingly this season, McCourty says, a number of Patriots, often led by Van Noy, run into the scrum of players after Gilmore breaks up a pass or delivers a hit simply to shout insults on Gilmore's behalf. "They'll get in there and be like, 'Yeah! He's mad because he's got zero catches!'" McCourty says. "Even though they didn't have anything to do with him having zero catches."
Many players wouldn't like that -- they wouldn't want anyone stealing their thunder. But this suits Gilmore just fine. In fact, it is actually what he prefers.
He knows how good he is. He would just rather have other people say it.
