Vincent Brown’s next chapter
How does Vincent Brown unwind from his job as an NFL receiver?
He grabs drum sticks and pulls on headphones.
Jazz. Funk. Pretty much anything with a beat, Brown dials it up after settling into his San Diego residence. Then he drums to tracks of bands such as Lettuce and Soul II.
“You have a lot of fun with it, especially when you’re used to it,” Brown said. “It’s a lot of coordination with your feet moving at the same time, (and) different time with your hands.”
There’s a rhythm to drumming, Brown said, that is “pretty much the same thing” as catching a pass.
The big difference: no running and jumping required.
Catching footballs wasn’t a problem for Brown. Chargers teammates marveled at the long fingers and jump-and-catch timing of the former San Diego State star and son of Vincent Brown Sr., a former Montreal Alouettes receiver.
Staying healthy. That was the issue.
And it led the Chargers to place Brown, 25, on injured-reserve Sunday with a calf strain.
General Manager Tom Telesco said it was difficult to part with Brown, who’s expected to receive an injury settlement and become a free agent. For the ’13 Chargers, the receiver played in all 18 games and caught 41 passes.
“He did a lot for us last year,” Telesco said Monday. “Great kid. Good football player. These are just tough decisions to make.”
The short-term decision had to be easy, however. One, Brown last practiced on July 25th and hadn’t been running on the side field during practices. Two, Dontrelle Inman, a faster, bigger newcomer, made plays in both practices and exhibitions. Moreover, Inman can help on special teams.
I hope Brown succeeds with another NFL team. I wish him luck finding a passer as accurate as Philip Rivers, who led the NFL in completion percentage last year.
He faces other challenges, too. Rivers and he worked together three-plus years, building a rapport. He wasn’t part of special teams. Nor are his talent margins fat. He is smallish at 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds and must nail his routes because his speed, short and long, isn’t special.
He has a knack for making contested catches, though, and wherever you put him -- flanker, slot, split end -- he has experience.
Will the Chiefs offer him a make-good contract? They are thin at receiver and may want to learn inside dope about Mike McCoy’s operation. Norv Turner, now with the Vikings, is a fan of Brown’s. Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt is also known to like him.
Once Brown got going with the Chargers, he had useful stretches.
He may want to revisit his training methods, however. In three of his four training camps, he was waylaid by a leg-muscle injury shortly after camp began. Three months after A.J. Smith spent a third-round draft pick on him, he lost a month of training camp to a hamstring pull suffered running a dig route in the second practice. Another hamstring strain cost him a week-plus last summer and limited him early in the season. The calf strain came during a warmup session, also on the second day of camp.
If his legs hold up, Brown should be able to challenge for NFL work. But given his injury history, that’s in doubt.
