As he heads into his eighth NFL season, his third with the New England Patriots, offensive tackle Trent Brown has accomplished plenty.
He was starting left tackle for the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, the team's most recent title, part of a season-long performance which he parlayed into a four-year, $66 million deal which made him -- at the time -- the NFL's highest-paid offensive lineman with the Oakland Raiders.
Brown made his only Pro Bowl appearance in his first season with Oakland, spending one more season with the Raiders in Las Vegas before he was traded back to the Patriots. Not bad for a former seventh-round draft pick.
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With all of that in mind, Brown revealed part of the reason why he still has a chip on his shoulder while appearing on Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast on Wednesday, and it goes beyond waiting until the seventh round to hear his name called in 2015.
"I remember long snappers, all types of positions picked before me," said Brown, who was originally selected 244th overall by the San Francisco 49ers. "It just added fuel to the fire."
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One long snapper did indeed hear his name called before Brown in 2015: Joe Cardona, his teammate with the Patriots, who was selected in the fifth round with the 166th overall selection. The 49ers themselves drafted a punter well before Brown, tabbing Bradley Pinion with the 165th pick.
"I'm a seventh-round draft pick, here I am going into Year 8," Brown said. "I've kind of proven myself to be one of the best offensive tackles in the game."
Brown re-signed with the Patriots last week on a two-year, $13 million contract.
New England passed over Brown 10 times in the 2015 draft before acquiring him prior to the 2018 season. Cardona is the only selection still with the Patriots from their 2015 haul, though the team did just trade guard Shaq Mason (fourth round, 131st overall) to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this offseason. Trey Flowers (fourth round, 101st overall) is the only other player New England selected before Brown went off the board that made a difference in Foxboro, with the team's picks in each of the first three rounds (Malcom Brown, Jordan Richards, Geneo Grissom) not amounting to much.
Brown, who told the PMT crew that "being able to move grown men against their will" was what he loved most about football, also had high praise for former offensive line coach in New England, Dante Scarnecchia.
"I think it was just attention to detail," Brown told PMT when asked about what made Scarnecchia so great. "The love he had for the game and the love he has for guys in the room."
Brown recalled a poor performance in his second game with the Patriots against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 2 of the 2018 season, which he followed up with another poor showing at practice the following week. After getting chewed out by Scarnecchia, Brown said he went on to play the best football he's ever played.
Brown also shared a few other tidbits in his appearance on PMT, including that he was unaware Mac Jones' real first name was McCorkle, and that he didn't know Dee Ford was offsides in the 2018 AFC Championship Game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Tom Brady threw what would have been a season-ending interception for the Patriots, only for the play to be called back thanks to Ford, lined up across from Brown, in the neutral zone.