Panthers Brown eager to learn.....

[AKPantherFan]

Panthers Brown eager to learn

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NFL

August 08, 2009 11:18 PM

Steve Reed

CHARLOTTE – His smile is infectious.

His personality is charming.

And he has the maturity of a guy who has been in the NFL for 15 years.

There’s plenty to like about rookie defensive end Everette Brown off the field, but the Carolina Panthers are equally impressed with how the kid is taking to the defense between the lines.

“He wants to be good and he has a great attitude,” coach John Fox.

You notice in his every day approach to the game.

You notice in the way Brown can be seen following veteran Julius Peppers around like a puppy, eager to learn the veteran’s tricks of the trade. This past Wednesday, for instance, Carolina’s defensive ends were paired off to work on technique drills in which players lock arms on each other’s shoulder pads and try to break free.

Brown quickly looked for Peppers, the team’s best lineman.

“I grabbed him and said, ‘Let's work,’” Brown said.

While Peppers may not be in the best graces with Carolina fans right now, the bottom line is he’s a four-time Pro Bowler and considered one of the best players in the league at his position.

And that explains why Brown is stuck to him like glue, absorbing everything Peppers has to offer. Ironic, perhaps, that one small town Carolina kid is teaching another.

“I want to know what it takes (to be great). There's no better way than to work with it and against it to find out what works,” Brown said. “Some of the drills we're doing against each other, I may feel what he's doing and then I'm able to do it, so it helps me become a better player.”

Said Fox: “He's spent a lot of time with Julius. I think he's making good progress.”

At 6-foot-1 and 260 pounds, Brown is a bit undersized compared to most defensive ends in the league and we’ll not know for awhile just how good he’ll be. But after just one week of practice the Panthers couldn’t be more pleased.

Not that they didn’t expect it.

They did quite a bit of research on Brown before the draft, hoping he’d somehow fall to them in the second round. Finally, when pick 43 came up, they couldn’t wait any longer. Carolina traded up to get him, mortgaging next year’s first-round draft pick to do so.

Brown was once considered a top-10 draft pick, but fell off some team’s draft boards for unknown reasons. He had 13.5 sacks as a senior at Florida State, which ranked third in the nation.

Size, or lack thereof, may have been a factor.

He knows sacks won’t come as easy at the NFL level even with his lightning quick first step off the ball. The important thing for Brown is learning not to get locked up with bigger offensive lineman or he loses his advantage.

Therefore, he’s being taught to keep his elbows in tighter to his body when rushing the quarterback.

“At this level, having your elbows out half a second too long can be the difference in shedding your blocker quickly enough to make the tackle,” said Brown. “That's one of the focal points we'll continuously work on that seems minor, but it's actually a big deal.”

Brown is getting plenty of quality work going up against two of the league’s better tackles in Jordan Gross and Jeff Otah.

“You're not going to get much better than that combination,” said Brown. “You're getting one of the bigger guys (Otah) and you're getting one of the guys who plays speed the best (Gross). Being able to go against those guys in practice, and to be consistent against those guys (is) going to make Sundays pretty good – and pretty bad for the opposing tackles.”

One of the reasons Brown landed in Carolina is defensive coordinator Ron Meeks.

In Indianapolis, Meeks coached two smaller defensive ends before in Dwight Freeney (6-1, 268) and Robert Mathis (6-2, 245), both of whom have been extremely successful.

And Meeks admits that he saw a little of both them in Brown when the Panthers drafted him.

more.......http://www.gastongazette.com/sports/brown-36720-charlotte-eager.html

[DaveThePanther2008]

Great Article

Let me say this before I get blasted. I realize Brown has to pass Johnson for it to be Brown/Peppers. But following the thread. This could be one hellava scary combo.

It would be awesome to see Pep get 20 and Johnson/Brown get about 15.

I am looking forward to seeing Brown matched with Peppers. Peppers ability and Browns 1st step...wow.

Go Panthers