MUST READING for any coach, parent, or football fan.
What a difference: In Brown, Pats get best of Marshall plan
by Gerry Callahan
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
One is the best all-around player on the best team in pro football, a small man with a huge heart who was forced to fight for every catch and every contract since he arrived in the NFL nine years ago. The other guy represents the worst mistake that one of the NFL's worst teams has made, a self-absorbed superstar with an $18 million signing bonus and an attitude who only occasionally gives an honest effort.
One is 3-0, the other is 0-3. One can be seen on a lighthearted United Way commercial, fiercely competing against some senior citizens. The other has been seen spraying an older NFL official with a water bottle. One calls himself Super Bowl champ. The other calls himself ``Super Freak.''
They went to the same school and played the same position for two seasons apiece, and now they both serve as glaring examples for young pass-catchers everywhere. Watch closely, kids: Troy Brown plays the game the way it should be played, every week, every down. He is a winner, a champion, a role model on the field. Randy Moss, he does just the opposite, picking his spots, playing only for himself and infecting his entire team like a bad case of the flu.
They must be so proud down in Huntington, W. Va., at least until the TV cameras catch Randy Moss loafing downfield again or making another half-hearted attempt to catch a pass over the middle. Then they will no doubt remind you that the wondrous Troy Fitzgerald Brown also honed his craft with the Thundering Herd of Marshall University. One bad actor don't spoil the whole Herd.
``You mean my idol?'' said Marshall associate head coach Mark Gale when asked about Brown. ``I love Troy Brown. He's just a Class-A individual, and until the day I die I would do anything for that man.''
And Moss?
``Troy is my idol,'' Gale said.
It was a Sunday afternoon of extremes for the Marshall alumni in Week 3 of the NFL. Brown set a Patriots record with 16 catches for 176 yards and a touchdown. As usual, he worked the middle of the field without fear and made most of his catches in traffic. In the third quarter, Brown made eight catches for 74 yards and a touchdown on one drive. ``He's obviously the best receiver in the league in the middle of the field,'' Tom Brady said yesterday. ``He's just a great player, and he's really the spark of our offense.''
Moss' quarterback, meanwhile, offered no such praise for his star receiver. While Brown was saving the Patriots from the upset at Gillette Stadium, Moss was going through the motions in the Vikings' 21-14 loss to the Panthers. The man who was dubbed the best player in the NFL by The Sporting News last season had four catches for 16 yards. Those, of course, were not the only four balls that Daunte Culpepper threw his way.
The Vikings are striving for something called the Randy Ratio, a strange concept that coach Mike Tice devised to keep his petulant wideout happy. They want to involve Moss in at least 40 percent of their offense, and they seemed to make an attempt at the number on Sunday. Unfortunately, Culpepper was unable to put all of his passes on the mark, and Moss was not in the mood to reach for them.
Memo to Super Freak: These games are on TV. People are watching. ESPN's Sean Salisbury broke down various Vikings plays and pointed out Moss' lackluster effort for all the world to see. After one lazy, one-arm attempt by Moss to catch a ball over the middle, Culpepper berated his teammate on the sideline. ``It's just the heat of the battle,'' Moss said. ``Daunte's a great competitor. We get on each other because we just want to see each other perform to the best that we know how to do.''
Of course, no one has to get on Troy Brown or any of the other Patriots receivers who are lucky enough to watch and learn from the Pats' Pro Bowler. Brown doesn't demand a ``ratio'' of his team's plays; he just goes out and earns it. There is, ironically, one other thing that the two prominent Marshall alumni have in common: They both waited an unusually long time to hear their names on draft day. Despite his otherworldly skills, Moss didn't go until the 21st pick of the '98 draft. Maybe its time to admit that the 20 teams that took all that grief for passing on Moss weren't such nitwits after all.
Brown went to the Patriots in the eighth round in '93, back when there was an eighth round. He was the 198th player taken, which at least gives him bragging rights over Brady, who was the 199th player drafted seven years later. Brown was waived by Bill Parcells before the '94 season and forced to sit at home for half the year.
``We use him as an example for all our players,'' Gale said of Brown. ``He's a guy with 100-plus receptions last year and he still plays every snap like he might get cut. He does it all: special teams, blocking, catching balls over the middle. Do you know what his last play for us was? An interception. In the national championship game in '92. We put him in at corner because we knew he would do anything to win.''
Brown went to Lees-McCrae Junior College before Marshall because he had no scholarship offers out of high school. He went to Division 1-AA because no one in 1-A was kicking in his door. Marshall was his only scholarship offer, according to Gale. Brown had 139 catches for 2,476 yards and 24 touchdowns for the Herd in '91 and '92. Four years later, Super Freak showed up and blew those numbers away.
Still, after winning the Super Bowl in February, Brown was finally honored by his alma mater. At halftime of a basketball game, they presented Brown with an enlarged poster of the Wheaties box on which he appeared. The governor declared it ``Troy Brown Day'' in West Virginia.
Asked who the biggest star in Huntington is these days - the Super Freak or the Super Bowl champ - Gale said, ``It's not the same for Randy. He stays up in Minnesota or trains down in Boca. This is Troy's home. He's one of us, and believe me, I'm not alone. Everyone down here loves Troy Brown.''
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