FOXBORO, Mass. — Brandon Browner didn’t even have a chance to check his phone Sunday night before reporters started asking how it feels to be facing his former team in the Super Bowl.
Browner’s phone likely was buzzing before, during and after the New England Patriots’ 45-7 AFC Championship Game win over the Indianapolis Colts. The Seattle Seahawks, the team on which he made his mark in the NFL, already had advanced to Super Bowl XLIX before the Patriots did later in the day. The Legion Of Boom that he helped create will be giving his new quarterback, Tom Brady, fits in two weeks.
So is Browner excited to face the Seahawks?
“Most definitely,” he said. “I couldn’t have drawn it up any better way.”
Browner, who signed a discounted three-year contract with the Patriots this offseason because of a looming four-game suspension, was able to keep track of the Seahawks’ game while New England prepped for the Colts.
“Yeah, it was crazy,” Browner said. “They were down, I didn’t think they were going to make it. It was inevitable. I envisioned us two at the end of the day, and that’s what it panned out to be.”
Browner had a tumultuous end to his Seahawks tenure, but owner Paul Allen and head coach Pete Carroll were able to mend fences with him on the way out, despite a suspension that kept him out of their Super Bowl XLVIII win over the Denver Broncos last year. The Seahawks made it clear that they wouldn’t be bringing back the 6-foot-4, 221-pound cornerback after that, but he still was able to participate in the team’s victory celebrations.
“No hard feelings at all,” Browner said. “I was blessed and fortunate. I was suspended over there and I was still able to get a ring. That was a decision by the owner and the coach over there to give me that, and they didn’t have to. I’m always going to have love for those guys at the end of the day. It would be sweeter to beat those guys, you know.”
The Seahawks’ defense remains similar to the one that Browner played in for three years. They use physicality on the edges and mix Cover 1 and Cover 3 schemes. Browner will do what he can to help his current team prepare for those looks, but he’ll leave it up to the experts in the long run.
“I will try, but at the end of the day, man, they’re champs for a reason,” Browner said. “There’s only so much I can tell these guys. I’m a defensive player.”
Browner is coming off perhaps his best game as a Patriot, helping to shut down quarterback Andrew Luck, tight end Coby Fleener and the Colts’ receivers to the tune of 129 yards and a 36.3 completion percentage. Browner will be even more motivated in the Patriots’ next and final game, however.
Thumbnail photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images
