BY SEAN DONOVAN
Brown's story might be a little more interesting, though.
An all-state football player from Utah who garnered interest from D-I schools such as BYU, Washington State, and Oregon, Brown chose to play basketball at a small local college. Brown soon realized that he would not reach the NBA and moved on to a job in accounting.
“I kind of weighed my options, and I thought I was just making the big boy, grown up decision, ‘You’re not gonna play in the NBA, you’re not 6-10, you play small forward, at 6-4 you’d have to play point guard,’ I’m not a point guard. I just moved onto the next step as far as my life,” Brown told SI.
He soon got the urge to get back into athletics and started working out to bulk up. Two of his brothers played on the BYU football team, and he drew inspiration to start working toward getting back into football.
“Having a couple of younger brothers that play college football and watching them play and seeing them develop and having success in football I started to think, ‘My brothers are successful at this, and I know that I’m a better athlete than them,’" Brown said. "I’ve got that older brother stigma where I can’t let my younger brothers show me up. I really started to push hard for it.”
Brown, 24, hooked up with a fitness trainer in December and worked towards an appearance at the BYU Pro Day, which was on March 29. Having built up to about 240 pounds, Brown surprised NFL scouts by posting a 4.44 40-yard dash and 39-inch vertical leap, while comfortably handling catching drills. At 6-foot-4, he immediately drew interest from a handful of teams to play tight end, including the Chiefs, Jaguars, Patriots and Raiders.
Miami signed Brown on Friday in hopes to strike gold in a former basketball player turned tight end, a la Jimmy Graham or Antonio Gates. With a little creativity, the Jets and Dolphins are hoping they can end the Patriots' monopoly on AFC East tight end stardom.
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