How do you feel when you wake up for work Monday morning? Unless you’re in the NFL, no matter how bad it is, it’s probably better than Chad Brown. Today, Brown, a former star linebacker at Colorado and now a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, will play against the Broncos. Tomorrow, the 36-year-old, 14-year veteran will begin the process of preparing for Game Day anew. Recently, Brown reflected on the passage of time as it applies to professional football.
Anthony Cotton: What’s the toughest part of getting ready for a game?
Chad Brown: Hmmm. … Probably Wednesday practice. At my age, I’m working through the soreness from Sunday’s game, and you’re out there hitting in pads on Wednesday. That’s probably the toughest part.
AC: People talk about players losing a step and players, I’m sure, would argue with that. Where do you think you are now as a player?
CB: (Laughs). I don’t understand why players would argue. Time waits for no one. I don’t think anybody, whether they play football or not, feels as good at 36 as they did at 25. So why fight what’s natural?
AC: How does it manifest itself?
CB: Wow. Your body simply doesn’t recover as quickly, it’s not as responsive as it once was. It forces you to pay more attention when you’re watching film, so you understand your assignments more, so you can be better on the field, so you can still be a good player, even though you’re starting to slow down physically.
AC: Let’s talk about film study, and the idea of you playing with the New England Patriots last year. What was that experience, playing for Bill Belichick, like? Is it ‘all that,’ in terms of the demands placed on players?
CB: Totally. They do like older players and they do like smart players; he can come up with a whole new offensive philosophy or defensive philosophy week to week. The defense can change from a 4-3 to a 3-4 within one series. You can be on the sideline, and Bill will say, “Remember that blitz we ran in training camp” – and this is in November or December. They draw it up on the sideline one time and expect you to be able to go out there and run it. He’s built a fantastic football culture there; they’re demanding and lots of film study, lots of personal responsibility, lots of personal discipline, but at the same time, winning’s fun. It’s a great football environment to be in.
AC: What was your thought process when they cut you in September and they brought (37-year-old) Junior Seau in?
CB: They brought him in before I was released. I broke my hand the first week of training camp. But having been there for a year and seeing how they brought guys in and out (for tryouts)… Bill said they were going to release me, but they wanted me to continue working out and when my hand was healthy, they said they’d bring me back as soon as they had a roster spot open. They had a run of injuries at defensive back and they couldn’t bring me back the week my hand got healthy. And then the Steelers called, so it was a case of do I wait for a roster spot to open up with the Patriots, which was an uncertainty, or do I go to the Steelers and play on Sunday? You’re a football player, you want to play, so you go where you can play.
AC: It almost seemed like you and (Monty) Beisel (another linebacker who only played one year for New England) were the fall guys for last season – but it doesn’t sound like that was the case.
CB: No, no. In the offseason, I was officially retired, and then the Giants called so I took a trip out there, and then the Patriots started calling. So I didn’t feel as if – when you’re trying to go from outside linebacker to inside linebacker, and you’re trying to replace two local legends in Tedy Bruschi and Ted Johnson … it was tough, and I did not have the results that I would have liked out on the field. But once I moved back to the outside, a more natural position, and they got to know me, and I got to know the defense a little better, I thought I started to play pretty well. That was in the dime and nickel packages, and that’s the role they’d planned on me playing this year before I broke my hand.
AC: Was the idea of retiring going out on your own terms?
CB: In a sense, but then teams start calling you, and you realize, “Well, OK, these guys think I can still play, so let me start working out and preparing to play football.” I didn’t sign with the Patriots until the day before training camp. Having not gone through the minicamps and the offseason workouts, it makes you realize you do love the game and you do enjoy the camaraderie in the locker room, all those types of things. So if you put in five months preparing yourself to play, you go out and play if someone wants you.
AC: What’s the best situation you’ve been in in terms of locker rooms and coaches and winning?
CB: There’s more than one way to win a Super Bowl, and more than one way to have a winning team. I’ve played for four different head coaches and 10 different defensive coordinators and I don’t even know how many different linebacker coaches. And I can say something positive about all those guys, so it’s just too difficult to judge. Obviously, winning the Super Bowl is the ultimate prize. I have not been on a team that’s won the Super Bowl. I’ve been on teams the year after they won a Super Bowl; I went to a team that went to the Super Bowl and lost. It’s difficult to say that one situation has been absolutely the best.
AC: One of those teams is the Steelers. Is this season’s record a run of bad luck that could happen to any team, or does winning last year’s Super Bowl have anything to do with it?
CB: When you are the champ, everyone’s going to give you their best game. They looked when the schedule came out in the spring and they said, “We’ve got Pittsburgh,” and they kind of point to that. That’s true whether it was at Colorado after we won a national championship there, or Pittsburgh or New England last season. But I don’t see any kind of Super Bowl hangover. The guys aren’t resting on what happened last year. We’re certainly not playing as well as we would like, but of the five games we’ve lost, in three or four of them, one or two plays could have turned the game around in our favor. We’re not going out there and getting beat by 20 or 30 points. We’re making just enough mistakes, or, not making enough plays, to get the victory. But we’re close.
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
