Panthers rookie Derrick Brown is a beast on the field, and more special off it
When asked about his first meeting with Derrick Brown, Panthers coach Matt Rhule, pauses. He gazes into space, and lets out a sigh, still blown away by the moment.
It was in January at the Senior Bowl. Panthers general manger Marty Hurney had arranged the meeting with Brown. There, Brown talked about why he returned to Auburn for his senior year, his love for football and his defensive line coach at Auburn, Rodney Garner. Rhule, a coach who values loyalty, was impressed.
“He cares about people and he cares about his coach in such a deep way that I was like, ‘well, you know what, I would do anything to coach that guy,’ ” Rhule said recently. “Listening to him talk, his football character just rocked me. It was the first guy as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers I had a chance to talk to, and it rocked me.”
Rocking people is what Derrick Brown has done for much his life — literally and figuratively.
Take for instance, Week 3 against the LA Chargers. On second-and-10 from their own 25-yard line, the Chargers tried to rush the ball up the middle toward Brown with running back Austin Ekeler.
Brown engaged with Chargers tackle Tyree St. Louis, pushing him back, then in an instance, threw him to the ground before snapping onto Ekeler. St. Louis looked like a ragged doll, and Ekeler didn’t stand much of a chance.
Brown, Carolina’s first-round draft pick who was taken No. 8 overall, has 18 tackles through eight games this season, including a team-high 5.5 tackles for loss. He also has the second-most quarterback pressures among rookies, with 12. He trails only Washington’s Chase Young (14).
“He has crazy, crazy freakish ability,” defensive tackle Zach Kerr said of Brown last month. “You look at what he does to other grown men out there on the football field, it’s pretty remarkable.”
Whereas most young players are focused on being great on the field, Brown wants to be great off it, too.
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So far, he’s starting to do that. He started the Derrick Brown Foundation in August, hoping to give back to Charlotte. Last month, his foundation partnered with Project C.A.R.E.S., also known as Project Universal Love, to hold a Halloween costume drive, donating $50,000 in costumes to give away to Charlotte families who are less fortunate.
When asked what influenced this, Brown said it was his own upbringing.
“Growing up, I didn’t have everything,” Brown said. “Of course my parents went through hardships, struggled through certain things, but I also watched my parents working, make sure we never felt no different.
“A lot of people helped us along the way. My parents helped a lot of people along the way. Just seeing that as I grew up, it makes you want to give back.”
‘Man of character’
Derrick Brown is quiet and soft-spoken. He chooses his words carefully.
Martha Brown, Derrick’s mother, describes her son as an “old soul.”
She said her son was nine when he told his parents that they didn’t have to get anything for him for Christmas. To just focus on his two younger siblings, Kameron and Mikealia, to make sure they had everything they needed.
“He was a big mature kid,” she said.
Brown, now a father of two, was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, but grew up in the Atlanta area. His parents, Martha, a manager at Walmart, and James, a deputy sheriff, moved the family there when Derrick was 3 so they could live in an area with a better school system — even if that meant they had to work extra hours and save up to get there.
When they moved to Atlanta, they lived in a three-bed room apartment — Derrick and Kameron in one room, James and Martha in a room, and Mikealia in the other.
“Derrick wasn’t raised with a lot of material things,” Martha Brown said. “You have to always be appreciative of the things you have. When you’re appreciative of the things you have, whether it’s a little or a lot, it always seems more when you find someone who doesn’t have what you have.”
Martha and James taught their children the importance of charity. Martha said she signed their children up for different community service events after school. They participated in food drives, passed out toys for the Salvation Army, sang Christmas carols to the elderly, worked in group homes, and had her sons help neighbors move.
“My momma volunteered us for everything,” Kameron Brown jokes. They initially didn’t like it. But as they got older and began to learn the lessons their mother hoped to teach them, Kameron said they began to enjoy it — especially Derrick.
Derrick’s propensity for helping others carried over to his time at Auburn.
Each summer, some coaches and players on the Auburn football team would go to the Dominican Republic for six days to do mission work. There, they built foundations for houses, cleaned water filters and tried to encourage the residents.
Brown made the trip every year.
“He’s a man of character,” Rodney Garner, Auburn’s defensive line coach, said of Brown. “That’s the one thing that when I talk about Derrick Brown, that’s the one thing that is so true. He is truly a man of character. He stands for everything that is good in this world right now.”
Brown joined the student council and participated in other leadership opportunities at Auburn. His teammates called him, “Baby Barack,” after the former president, a nickname his mother still giggles at but is proud of.
His father, James, said the same. He likes to tell people that he tried to call his son one day, and Derrick asked his father if could he call him back. He was out to dinner with a senator and couldn’t talk.
“I was surprised by that, so I told him OK, then. But I’m thinking to myself, well he’s doing a lot better than me,” the elder Brown said with a laugh.
Derrick Brown foundation
Brown’s foundation partnered with Tyrone Miller, the founder of Project C.A.R.E.S, a non-profit whose mission is to “provide community resources, affordable housing, educational services and healthy meals to families in need, so they may lead healthy and productive lives.”
The two men had a connection through Brown’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, and met with each other when Brown signed with the Panthers. The partnership gave Miller’s foundation the opportunity to reach more people in Charlotte. It gave Brown the opportunity to give back.
“What we found is we have a joint mission for Charlotte,” Miller said of he and Brown’s conversation. “We have a civic responsibility to our community. And for a young 22-year-old to share that vision, coming into a town like this here, I think it’s phenomenal.”
Last month’s Halloween event was the first between the two partners. Hundreds of Charlotte families showed up throughout the day to pick up Halloween costumes and snacks at Brown’s event, hosted with Project C.A.R.E.S.
The two foundations will continue to host pop-up charity events each month through June. On Nov. 11, the foundations will host a Veteran’s Day event. In December, the foundations will host a Christmas event.
Brown started the Derrick Brown Foundation in August. He said it was something he had been thinking about for some time and he hopes that it helps him create a connection with the Charlotte community.
“I’m here in Charlotte, and I want to do all I can to help this community,” he said.
This story was originally published November 7, 2020 at 8:30 AM with the headline "Panthers rookie Derrick Brown is a beast on the field, and more special off it."
