Before the 2022 trade to Philly, the wide receiver spent three seasons in Tennessee under current Patriots coach Mike Vrabel.
On a recent episode of the “Dudes on Dudes” podcast with Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman that aired Thursday, Brown said he hated his former head coach.
“Vrabe is the type of coach that he will call on you in the meeting,” Brown said. “He wants to make sure you’re engaged and he’s going to go over the keys to victory this week. You know them better than the back of your hand. I used to write in my notebook because at that time I didn’t like Vrabes. I didn’t like him and I admit he knows that. So, I used to write, “I hate Vrabes. “I hate Vrabes. I was doing it to pretend I was taking notes to look like I was engaged. But because he was so hard on me when I was a rookie and I didn’t understand. So, at the time I told Vrabes like, ‘Hey, like I was humble already. You don’t have to humble me.’ But I didn’t really understand what he was trying to, you know, push me to be.
“Another little quick one, he showed a clip and I ran like bang-8.” [route]and I scored and he praised me. So I was feeling pretty good about myself, right? I’m a rookie and a few games later he showed me another game with bang-8, and I get tackled. He was like, “What’s the difference between the first play and the second play?” And he was like, “You’re tired.” He was like, ‘that’s not going to cut it.’ He thought it was the same mentality you showed in the first game, you should always do it. It’s you. Like here, it’s not going to cut it.’ When I say he holds every single player accountable from top to bottom, I don’t care who it is, as it is who he is. And that brings the team together because no one is bigger than the team. Nobody is bigger than the program, so you have to respect that.”
Time has a way of coloring our past differently than we looked at it in the moment. Based on how Brown talked about Vrabel’s coaching methods — not out of animosity but more of an understanding of why the coach held meetings that way — that could mean he’s open to a reunion.
While it’s anyone’s guess whether Vrabel would want Brown, who has been a squeaky wheel in Philly, given how displeased the coach seemed the day Tennessee made the trade, we can at least guess the coach knows the talent Brown brings to the table.