Patriots’ Trent Brown tells the story of ‘a year like no other’ from his perspective in new report
Brown talked about why he missed games at the end of the season, what happened during training camp, and how the Patriots have stunted Mac Jones's growth.
There has been a considerable amount of reporting on Trent Brown this season touching topics such as missed games, lateness to meetings, and a perceived unwillingness to battle through injuries.
On Tuesday morning, NESN published an interview telling the story from Brown’s perspective.
The story kicks off with Brown slamming anonymous sources within the Patriots’ organization who leaked information about him that he considers inaccurate.
“It’s been a rough year,” Brown said. “This has been a year like no other that I’ve had in my NFL career as far as the amount of anonymous sources that have come forward to spew complete lies about my character.”
“It’s been tough to even go in the building every day knowing that there’s somebody that I probably look at every day, or smiles in my face every day, that is running a smear campaign.”
The Boston Herald reported that Brown openly spoke about wanting to join an NFC team next year. Brown denied ever saying such a thing.
“I’ve never openly said anything about any NFC team or anything like that,” Brown said. “It’s always been about me being wherever God wants me to be, and me handling my current situation.”
As for his lack of playing time near the end of the year, Brown said that he was ill for “pretty much the last month.” He said multiple illnesses, including strep throat, the flu, and bronchitis, hit him during that period of time.
Brown missed six games, and made just eight starts this season.
The 30-year-old tackle said he skipped OTA’s because he “wanted to be a dad” and had a travel issue that caused him to be late to minicamp. The Patriots asked him to report early to training camp, and Brown did not like that.
“Of course, as a nine-year vet, that had me a little ticked off because you got me reporting with the rookies and I’m not injured,” Brown said.
The Patriots tied for the lowest-scoring offense in the NFL this year. Brown said he believes it’s not all Mac Jones’s fault, though the quarterback did struggle mightily in his third season. Brown pointed to the decision to replace Josh McDaniels with Matt Patricia, as well as an inability to retain talent on the offensive line as issues that derailed Jones.
“If you pay Ted Karras, who played a hell of a season at left guard before he left to go to Cincinnati, I think that solves an issue,” Brown said. “I think if you don’t trade Shaq Mason, who’s an All-Pro guard, that solves an issue. I don’t think it was necessary for those moves to be made. And then to not really replace them with guys of their caliber.”
Brown said one of his issues with the team is the coaching staff messing with him.
“I’ve even heard from coaches how they’ll sit in staff meetings and they’ll be talking about how they can f–k with me,” Brown said. “Like, I guess trying to get me out of character or whatever. It’s really crazy to think that we’re spending time talking about that instead of getting better.”
Ultimately, Brown said he has some issues to settle with the Patriots but is open to returning if they can be fixed.
“I’m not opposed to it,” Brown said. “I think before that would take place, some things would need to be hashed out and understood.”
One of the things the Patriots need to do a better job of understanding is how players want to be treated, Brown said.
“There just needs to be more attention on signing and drafting good players,” Brown said. “And also understanding that Foxboro is not a vacation spot. You’ve gotta spend some money to get good players, and you’ve gotta spend money to keep your good players in-house. And once they’re in-house, you’ve gotta treat them with some respect and common decency as a human being.”
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