Brown Filling Big Shoes
Friday, February 29, 2008
By Nick
Wagoner
Senior
Writer
A simple twist of
fate brought Josh Brown home or at least as close as he can get to home Saturday
morning.
In the prime of his
career as one of the league’s top place kickers, Brown had a good grasp on his
options as recently as Thursday night. Those choices didn’t include
St. Louis.
By Friday morning,
Rams kicker Jeff Wilkins had retired and the Rams immediately knew they didn’t
have to travel too far outside the NFC West Division to find Wilkins’
replacement.
So it was only
fitting as the man they called “Money” retired that the Rams pursued Brown and
gave him plenty of currency to ensure he would be in St.
Louis for the next five years.
With that, the Rams
made Brown one of the highest paid kickers in the league, signing him to a
five-year deal worth about $14 million Saturday morning.
“It’s a strange
current of events,” Brown said. “St.
Louis wasn’t even on the radar and I got a call late
Friday morning and was on a plane later that night. I had dinner with everybody
last night and they just blew me away with their offer and I can’t tell you
exactly how it feels to be received and wanted that way by a ball
club.”
While Rams coach
Scott Linehan, President of Football Operations Jay Zygmunt and Executive V.P.
of Player Personnel Billy Devaney came to a consensus that Brown would be their
top target, Wilkins’ role in the move to land Brown can’t be underestimated.
Wilkins had been
agonizing over the decision about whether to call it quits because of some
health issues he alluded to at the end of the season. With free agency looming
and no decision made, the Rams could have been staring at a bare market had
Wilkins not come to a conclusion.
But as Wilkins did
so many times in his 14-year career, he came through for the Rams one last time,
meeting with Linehan and Zygmunt on Friday morning and declaring his intention
to retire.
Soon after, the Rams
were on the phone with Robert Roche, Brown’s agent, and expressing serious
interest in his client.
“My respect for Jeff
Wilkins is off the charts,” Devaney said. “The way he handled this whole thing
was really helpful. Our worst case is him saying he needs some time to think
about it or maybe he’ll give it a try and we are left in the lurch. I can’t say
enough good things about Jeff Wilkins and the way he handled this whole
situation.”
While Devaney said
he doesn’t know Wilkins personally, he was plenty familiar with Brown. In his
time as a decision maker in Atlanta,
Devaney had evaluated and developed a fondness for Brown.
Devaney and the
Falcons targeted Brown in free agency last year, but the Seahawks placed the
franchise tag on him, keeping him off the market.
While the Rams would
have loved to see Brown leave the division, especially after he almost single
handedly kept them out of the playoffs with two game winning field goals in
2006, his staying in Seattle turned
out to be another fortunate twist.
Brown posted another
strong season in 2007 for the Seahawks, hitting 28 of 34 field goals and all of
his 43 extra point attempts.
Entering this
offseason, though, Seattle had a
choice to make between using the tag again on Brown or slapping it on top
cornerback Marcus Trufant.
The Seahawks opted
to use it on Trufant, but continued to negotiate with Brown. With no agreement
imminent, Brown had begun discussions with Kansas
City and
Atlanta about contracts and possible
visits.
When he heard about
the newfound opportunity in St.
Louis, Brown jumped at the chance.
“Out of nowhere my
agent calls me and says ‘Hey, Jeff Wilkins just retired,’” Brown said. “Well,
that’s an interesting job considering it’s five hours from my parents’ house and
in a dome and in the division. I was kind of nervous about another team in the
division and I thought ‘Oh, I’m going to get massacred by the
Seattle fans now.’ It’s all part of
the game; it’s a great opportunity to be closer to my family and closer to my
college.”
Brown’s entire
family, including his parents and three siblings, live in
Tulsa, Okla.,
meaning they will have an opportunity to attend all of the Rams’ home games. In
addition, Brown gets the chance to escape rainy
Seattle and kick in the warm and dry
confines of the Edward Jones Dome eight times a year.
Not that Brown needs
the better climate to have success. Even kicking in the windy and wet conditions
at Qwest Field, Brown was able to convert 80 percent of his field goals in five
seasons with the Seahawks.
Perhaps the best
news for the Rams, though, is that no longer will they have to worry about Brown
hurting them in the twice-yearly meetings with
Seattle. When Brown arrived Friday
night for dinner with Rams officials, the team told him some of the nicknames he
has around town.
The only printable
one that didn’t involve a four-letter word was “Ram Killer,” a nickname Brown
took some pride in because of the amount of respect it showed for his kicking
talents.
“I took that as a sign of respect and a compliment,” Brown
said. “It’s kind of crazy. Now they’re going to have me on their side, and I’ll
get the opportunity to kick some game winners for you guys and put us in
position to get back to the show and make an
impact.”
The chance to move
closer to home, the indoor stadium and the size of the check made the move
easier for Brown. For the Rams, it was even more of a no brainer, for the team
had him ranked as the top available (read: non-franchised) free agent on their
board.
“The Rams family
lost what is arguably, in my opinion, the best kicker in franchise history to
retirement and that was a tough thing to deal with and an even tougher thing was
what we were going to do to replace such a guy because you can’t really replace
somebody like that,” Linehan said. “It’s a pretty unique situation in that we
lost one of the best kickers in pro football and the best kicker in our
franchise’s history and signed the best kicker in pro football the same day. We
are fortunate now that he is a member of our family. We are very excited about
it.”
