"Troy has gone on to have a tremendous career here with most catches in franchise history and 120 catches in that ’01 season, including the playoffs. I think back fondly of some of the great moments Troy had here, offensively. The pass from David Patten in the Indianapolis game was a huge play for us in a big game. The Super Bowl, the pass across the middle where he got out of bounds and we had no timeouts to stop the clock and set up the game-winning field goal.
Against Carolina in ’03, in the Super Bowl, he had three catches on that last touchdown, game-winning drive; which without that first and 20, I don’t know where that drive ends up. He made a great catch over the middle from Tom [Brady]. The Snow Game, everybody talks about Adam’s [Vinatieri] kick and it was a hell of a kick. But without Troy’s punt return to set that up that put us in field position to at least get into field goal range, I don’t know if there ever is a kick. We got into the ’04 season and we had some injuries in the secondary. We used Troy at the inside position in our sub defense in a position we call the “Star”.
I remember the first game we played; it was in St. Louis. That game was against, obviously, still a great offensive football team and he had a big day there, defensively, and broke up some passes. He really stepped in and played a big role in that game and, also, caught probably the easiest touchdown of his career - the sleeper pass down there from Vinatieri on the 4-yard line on the fake field goal. Then, of course, he had the interception against [Drew] Bledsoe and the interception in the Cincinnati game against Carson Palmer to kind of seal that win.
He just made some plays for us on the defensive side of the ball, but the game that really stands out, to me, is the Green Bay game. We went up there in ’06. Eugene Wilson was out. Rodney Harrison was out and Asante [Samuel] was out. We said, ‘Well, we’re going to put Troy on Donald Driver.’ I remember some looks in there from the defensive coaches, and even the players. [Driver] had 93 catches and 1,300 yards. Driver was the leading receiver in the NFC. Troy held him to one catch for three yards. The only one that he caught, Troy wasn’t involved in that one, but he had one catch for three yards on him against Donald Driver.
In our locker room, and in the hallways, and the meeting rooms and so forth, we have pictures up from different games and different players. [Holding up a picture of Brown] To me, that picture, and I want to give Troy these pictures from the team, that picture epitomizes Troy Brown. Up against the best receiver in the NFC, in a game that three of our key defensive backs were out, he steps up and does a great job on him.
I remember the Miami game, in Miami, when we couldn’t win in Miami in the early part of the year. I don’t know how long… I don’t think we’d ever done it. We’d never won in Miami and it didn’t look like we were going to that day either. It was 13-13 with six minutes to go in overtime. We couldn’t move the ball. It was a tough day. Charlie [Weis] called a 130 Gap Slant. Tom [Brady] looks to the weak side and doesn’t have it. Troy runs the post, gets in there behind the safeties and probably gives us one of his biggest catches - it was his longest, 82 yards - to beat Miami when nobody thought we could do that. Nobody thought Troy could go deep.
Nobody thought he could make the big plays. But all he did was make plays. He just kept making them. I think back to the ’01 season when Troy had all of those punt returns: the Oakland game; the Pittsburgh game, for a touchdown; and the Cleveland game. We were sitting there at 7-5. It’s a tough game, 10-10, back-and-forth, neither team could really get much of an advantage, and Troy takes that one back, right up the middle. That’s the touchdown against Cleveland. Richard Seymour made the block on [Chris] Gardocki. I don’t think Troy needed it, but that was a nice block on that toudhdown."