Troy Brown, not Tom Brady, was the ‘TB’ who made me fall in love with the New England Patriots

I was born into New England Patriots fandom in 1984. While that currently makes me just the worst, there was a time, back when I was still figuring out how to form memories, when that meant nothing but pain. Rooting for the late-80s, early-90s Pats was a constant low-grade fever, a clammy feeling about which you never felt good but always understood there was so much room to get worse.

There was a shining light waiting on the horizon, but before Tom Brady could turn the team from lovable underdogs to evil empire, came a few weird years of varying success to deal with. Bill Parcells turned the roster around and led the team to Super Bowl XXXI. Then he gave way to Pete Carroll, who also won a bunch of games but wasn’t the surly butthole Patriots fans needed. He was fired after 27 wins in three seasons. In came Bill Belichick, and the team thus got much more popular in six states and way, way less in the other 44.

Only one man spent multiple seasons with each of those coaches, bridging together three eras that now stretch into three decades thanks to Belichick’s brilliance. That was Troy Brown, the punt returner-wide-receiver-tailback-cornerback-yeah-sure-I’ll-do-that dynamo who was the living, breathing citation of football ideals Belichick saw when he closed his eyes before his three hours of sleep each night.

Brown came into the league long enough ago to have been an eighth-round pick. He’d last until 2007, all with the Patriots, seeing everything from 5-11 to 16-0 in the process. The two-year starter at I-AA Marshall was an All-American who scored a touchdown approximately once every eight touches, but his diminutive frame — he was listed at 5’10 but always looked like the kind of man who avoids sitting behind big-haired women at the movies — and weak collegiate strength of schedule scared teams away.

The shifty special teamer didn’t even make the New England roster on his first try. He’d be a victim of final cuts in the preseason of his rookie year before rejoining the team to spell Ronnie Harris as a punt returner in 1993. When the 1994 season rolled around, Brown was again shown the door, only for Parcells to bring him back once more. In his first two seasons, he’d return 49 punts but make just two receptions.

Parcells brought old friend Dave Meggett to New England to usurp that special teams role, but it wasn’t a relegation for Brown — it was a promotion. The diminutive wideout’s days of training camp cuts were over. He still handled kick returns, but Brown began to make his mark on a receiving corps that featured Ben Coates and Vincent Brisby at the top and little help behind them.

The returns were modest at first, but by 1997 Brown was an integral part of the Pats’ offense, the kind of player who made tough catches over the middle and used his waterbug reflexes to turn modest gains into monster plays.

I remember the exact play when I became a Troy Brown fan, if not the exact moment. It was a nondescript fall Sunday in either 1995 or 1996, and the family had gathered at my grandparents’ house for a traditional meal. As my grandfather settled in for his post-meatball nap, a television deeper than it was wide broadcast a Patriots-Jets game from the Meadowlands. I don’t remember the circumstances behind the play, what the stakes were, or whether they were meaningful or not. I just remember Drew Bledsoe dropping back, firing a rocket low and away on a crossing route, and Brown falling to the turf reaching up, and snatching the ball out of the air while flat on his back.

It was the coolest catch I’d ever seen.

The ride as a Troy Brown fan only got better from there, peaking as a receiver when a backup named Tom Brady took the reins from Bledsoe in 2001. Brown was Brady’s security blanket, the short-route runner who helped his quarterback build confidence through a series of high-percentage passes. He propped up Brady throughout the year to a career-high 101 receptions and 1,199 yards — but that connection all boiled down to one catch that sparked a dynasty.

The ‘01 Patriots were 14-point underdogs in Super Bowl XXXVI and had just watched their 17-3 lead evaporate into a 17-all tie against a brilliant Rams offense that threatened to dust them in overtime. New England had the ball with 29 seconds left when Brady stepped up in the face of a three-man rush, looked downfield, and found Brown sneaking into daylight against a spread-wide secondary. 23 yards later, Brown had wiggled his way out of bounds and the Pats were in field goal position.

For the first time all night — even after New England had a 14-point lead we assumed would slip away and even after the fourth-quarter fumble-return touchdown we knew was going to get called back was erased by defensive holding was cleared from the scoreboard — it felt like the Patriots were finally going to win one. All because Troy Brown did his job better than anyone else could that night.

That wasn’t the only time Brown came up huge in the postseason. There was the AFC Championship Game that same season where he not only returned a punt for a touchdown, but also scooped up a blocked field goal before lateraling the return to Antwan Harris for a score. Brown was arguably responsible for a 17-point swing that day on special teams alone; the Patriots won 24-17.

But those performances may be overshadowed by the time he smashed southern California’s Super Bowl hopes and dreams into dust in the 2006 AFC Divisional Round. The Chargers led the Patriots 21-13 at home with fewer than seven minutes to play and New England facing fourth-and-5. Brady threw a pass downfield intended for Reche Caldwell but picked off by safety Marlon McCree.

That should have effectively crushed the Pats. Instead, Brown ran up to McCree, stripped the ball, and gave New England new life. Caldwell recovered and San Diego, unable to process the enormous swing in win probability, challenged the call on the field to no avail. Ten unanswered points later, New England was on to the AFC title game (which we’ll pretend never happened. Deal?).

Brown never reached the heights of that Pro Bowl performance as a wide receiver, but he remained an integral part of the New England roster for five more seasons afterward. When the Patriots ran trick plays where receivers or running backs or kickers threw passes, he was the hand trusted with running under those wobbly passes. When injuries decimated an already-suspect secondary, Brown was there to fill in. As a nickelback in 2004, he punished offenses trying to exploit his potential defensive weakness with three interceptions in 12 games.

Troy Brown was awesome. Hate the Patriots all you want; I understand. The moment you hate Troy Brown, however, is the moment you and I become enemies.