What Happened to That Guy? Jason Brown

The former center turned down a lucrative NFL contract to become a full-time farmer.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Greetings and welcome to season two of What Happened to
That Guy? A podcast about former Baltimore Ravens and life
after the NFL. I'm your host, John Eisenberg. You may
have read some of my opinion columns in game analysis
on the Ravens website and app. I've also authored ten books,
and I wrote for years for the Baltimore Sun way

(00:26):
back in the day. This podcast debuted a year ago,
and if you listen to season one, which featured episodes
on Peter Bullware, Kyle Bowler, Trevor Price, and several other
former Ravens, I appreciate it. Thank you for coming back.
Season one was an eye opening experience for me as
I spoke to players about what happens to them when

(00:48):
the cheering stops. I knew that some guys moved easily
into amazing second acts and others struggled to find their footing,
but I was surprised to hear that they all experienced
a dramatic jolt of sorts, one that they admit could
almost bring them to their knees if they weren't careful.
You can understand it. All they've ever been are football players,

(01:11):
and now they aren't did they prepare for the transition
emotionally and financially? Are they at peace with how their
careers ended, or are they walking away with unresolved issues
that might haunt them. The answers to those questions help
determine whether their path forward is smooth, rocky, or something

(01:32):
in between. The former Ravens I featured last year provided
a good cross section of outcomes, and I'm hoping to
achieve that again this year. I took my time selecting
the former players I wanted to feature. The list of
possibilities is nothing short of fantastic. There are over a
thousand former Ravens roaming the planet now, and many have

(01:53):
great stories to tell. I'm going to keep the lid
on who you'll hear about down the line, because I mean,
you have to have some surprises in life, right, But
I will tell you that almost every episode is influenced
to some degree by the hillacious coronavirus pandemic we're all
living through, as well as the broader awareness and acceptance

(02:15):
of systemic racism in our culture, which the Ravens have
fully embraced as an organization. It's hard to talk to
anyone these days, including former football players. Without exploring these subjects.
So here we go. When I originally decided to do
a podcast about former Ravens and what they're doing, several

(02:38):
media colleagues, not just one. Several colleagues said to me, Okay,
so you're starting with Jason Brown, and then who will
you do? Brown was an offensive lineman for the Ravens
from two thousand and five through two thousand and eight.
Not that well known, but his post football life is
so unique that the National TV Network News has report

(03:00):
or on it. Jason has been profiled on the CBS
Evening News, the NBC Nightly News, on the Road with
Steve Hartman, Finally Tonight, once you've made it to the
big time, why would you ever want to go back
down to the farm? Steve Hartman found the answer on
the road. At one point, number sixty, Jason Brown was

(03:20):
one of the best centers in the NFL. At one
point he had a five year, thirty seven million dollar
cottontract with the St. Louis Rams, and at one point
he decided it was all meaningless and just walked away
from football. Somehow, I didn't get to Jason during Season
one of what happened to that guy? My bad for sure,

(03:43):
but I'm rectifying that now. I suggest you to stay
with me here and listen to Jason's truly one of
a kind tale, which he tells so well. It begins
on a specific day, May fifth, two and ten. It's
Jason's twenty seventh birthday. Try and picture him. He's a big,
burly NFL lineman, a starting center with a bright smile

(04:07):
and gentle nature. The Ravens had drafted him five years
earlier out of the University of North Carolina. He broke
into the lineup in two thousand and seven, and then
he started at center in two thousand and eight on
a Ravens team that reached the AFC title game under
then first year head coach John Harbaugh. I spoke to
Harbaugh's predecessor, Brian Billock, about Jason. Billick coached him for

(04:32):
three years. Jason was always he was just a nice kid.
You know. He came in and you know, offensive lineman,
the temperament this defensive lineman, or made some other players,
and you had to learned what it was to be
a pro. Had to kind of work himself into pro shape.
He was big athletic kids, but needed to form himself

(04:52):
up a little bit. Smart kid. Jason's hard work paid
off after the two thousand and eighth season when he
became a free agent and cashed in, signing with the
Saint Louis Rams a five year, thirty seven point five
million dollar contract with twenty million dollars guaranteed. Jason left
Baltimore and the Ravens, moved to Saint Louis and started

(05:15):
every game for the Rams in two thousand and nine.
He was a leader there. He played in one with
Ed Read, ray Lewis Jonathan Ogden. But months after that
first season in Saint Louis, on the day he turned
twenty seven, he woke up and everything changed. I really
started to think about life a little bit more because

(05:37):
twenty seven is the same age that my older brother
was when he was serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and so he was seven years older than I. He
had passed back in two thousand and three when I
was still at USC Chapel Hill playing football for Carolina.
So seven years that had passed. And when I woke

(05:57):
up that morning, it was my birthday, and I looked
in the mirror and that big mansion that I purchased
one of those MTV style cribs in Saint Louis. I
didn't like what I saw. I should have been happy
because it's my birthday. I'm a millionaire many times over.
And guess what. I was convicted. I was challenged as

(06:18):
a man. He couldn't stop thinking about his older brother, Doucy,
who had made a career out of being in the military,
but then died in Iraq when a mortar shell hit
his battalion. My brother, he wears a size fourteen shoe
and I wear a size sixteen shoe. And guess what.
I couldn't feel his shoes. I couldn't walk them out

(06:39):
in his shoes. And a lot of people say that
we look alike, especially when we smile. And I saw
his reflection look back at me in the mirror, and
here's what he said to me, is Jason, what are
you doing with your life that's so special? What are
you doing with your life that's so awesome? And I
had no answer. Suddenly, the goal he'd always shot for

(07:02):
playing in the NFL didn't seem so important. He was
doing well for himself and his wife, supporting a lavish lifestyle,
but what was he doing for others? For the greater good.
He kept playing for the Rams in twenty ten and
twenty eleven while he quietly pondered these questions, but football

(07:23):
slowly began to recede from its prime position on his
list of priorities, partly because he now admits the Rams
just weren't very good. I will tell you one thing.
At Baltimore, very competitive atmosphere, man, just an awesome city.
And you knew that you had a chance to make

(07:44):
him through the playoffs every single year. You just didn't
know how far you were going to make him in
the playoffs. When I got to Saint Louis, it was
not the greatest show on turf anymore. Actually it was
about the worst show on turf. And you know when
you have, you know, the first overall draft pick, second
overall draft pick, you know, you know several years in

(08:05):
a row that that's not a good thing. Okay, that
that means you were about dead last in the league.
But yet I still tried to bring my positive attitude
and leadership you know there. But man, that competitive spirit
that we had in Baltimore led by by ray Lewis
ed Reid. Of course, the hall of famers that we

(08:26):
know right now. Just it just was not there. Man.
I'm so thankful and all of the fans in Baltimore
should be so so thankful that you all have not
experienced like some really really horrible depressing years, you know,
like that. Man, it will take the fun out of football, Yes,

(08:47):
it will. He reached a crossroads in the spring of
twenty twelve, two years after that faithful day, when he
looked in the mirror and didn't like what he saw.
The Rams had cut him his big salary. No longer
fit under their salary cap, Jason was a free agent again,
and several teams wanted to sign him, including the Ravens.

(09:07):
It was a lovely situation that any football player would
want to be in, receiving multi multi million dollar offers
to play in the NFL, but Jason, who is deeply religious,
had come to believe that something else was in store
for him. I share with my agent. I said, look,
if the Rams released me, more than likely I'm going

(09:29):
to hang up my fleet. And he was like, look, Jason,
don't sell anyone. You know that, all right? You know
you have several teams that they still want to sign
a long term deal. So it wasn't just Baltimore, the
Carolina Panthers, the San Francisco forty nine ers that could
have gone out there and play for Jim Jill Harbaugh.
And so I kept all three teams on the hook

(09:49):
for as long as possible, but still knowing that God
was calling me to be a farmer back in North
Carolina and to start my ministry of what we have.
Right now, you heard that right he had decided he
was going to become a farmer. A farmer. Jason didn't
note the first thing about it. He'd studied interpersonal communications

(10:12):
in college. He'd never put a shovel in the ground.
But God was calling him to do it. That's what
he told Harriball when they spoke on the phone during
free agency in that spring of twenty twelve. Harball wanted
to know if Jason was going to resign with the Ravens.
Jason ended up reflecting on the Bible story of Jonah

(10:33):
and the Whale, in which the prophet Jonah is punished
for disobeying God's order. He boards a ship that gets
caught in a storm, and then he gets tossed overboard
and ends up in the belly of a whale. I
called up John. Yeah, He said, hey, Jason, what was
going on? The draft is coming up in a couple
of weeks. You know, what are you gonna do? We

(10:54):
need to know what's on your mind. And I said,
a coach, I'd love to come play for you. Still
got a lot less than to think, and I'm honored.
I thank you for the opportunity, but um, God is
calling me away from football right now. And I said,
if I came to play for you, I fear that
that God would punish me the same way that he

(11:15):
punished Jonah. Um. And I said, Coach, it wasn't just
uh Jonah that suffered. I said, it was everyone on
that ship. And I said I don't think you would
want me on your team under those circumstances. And there
was an awkward silence over the phone for about ten seconds,
and then John said, uh, well, I appreciate your honesty,

(11:39):
and you know, good luck with your you know, with
your career post football. It's like, what I mean, what
was he going to say? You know what I mean?
And also what what young kid is going to tell
a hit NFL coach that, yeah, coach, um, I can't
come and play for you because I gotta go be
a farmer. He walked away from football, walked away from

(12:04):
the millions of dollars he was being offered, walked away
and bought a thousand acre farm in eastern North Carolina,
moved his wife and kids there, put a shovel in
the ground, and said, okay, now what how in the
world do I become a farmer? So it started with YouTube? Right, Yeah.

(12:26):
I get a lot of lasts and a lot of
shuckles when I tell people, Yes, I started learning farming
from watching videos on YouTube. And that is a part
that came natural. As football players, we watched hours and
hours of film every single day. We break down Louis
see and then we emulate it and transferred over to

(12:47):
the football field. And so it came natural for me
to watch hours and hours of YouTube videos and break
it down, you know, take my notes, and then transferred
over to the farm field. But when I started sharing
that that with people, especially our local agg extension agents,
they said, Chasing, don't you know that there's people out

(13:10):
here that can help you, like we care about your success.
Just like you had coaches when you played football, we're
farm coaches. And I was like, oh really, I said, well,
that's awesome, because I need a coach, all right, I
need a couple of coaches, that's right. So then the
local farmers started helping you out. I mean, I assume
that's gotta be the best way to learn. Yes, man,

(13:30):
I just received overwhelming support from a lot of the
local farmers as well. And so instead of people looking
at me and pointing the finger and laughing and say, Hi,
look at this dumb football player. He thinks he's gonna
be able to come out here and do what we've
been doing our whole lives. Right, But you know what

(13:50):
they showed compassion and that they really pulled me up
under their wings, showed me the ropes, told me a
lot of things not to do, a lot of costly
mistakes that I could have made early on. But at
the same time, you know, a farming people have been
doing it for thousands of years. He called his place
First Fruits Farm and set out to grow sweet potatas

(14:14):
and blueberries, North Carolina, being the sweet potata capital of
the world. It was and still is a one man operation.
In terms of full time staff. First Fruits has never
had a field manager or employee farm hands. There's just
Jason three hundred pounds. Jason down on his knees, planting, nurturing, growing,

(14:37):
driving a tractor harvesting. Fortunately, he gets a lot of
help from volunteers, hundreds of them, especially during harvest season.
He had started a ministry when he played for the Ravens,
Wisdom for Life he called it, and he has revived
it on the farm. Volunteers sign up to come to
first fruits, usually soon after SunUp. Together, Jason offers a

(15:01):
sermon before setting them loose in the fields. With a
lot of help, a lot of prayer, and a whole
lot of hard work, the farm has produced tens of
thousands of pounds of sweet potatoes every year for the
past seven years, more than a million pounds all told.
And here's where the story becomes truly special. Because Jason

(15:23):
never intended to feed his family with the food he grew.
He gives it away, all of it to food pantries,
soup kitchens, churches, anywhere there's a need. You know, my
mother asked me, She said, Jason, you know when you retire,
I know you're talking about you know, your ministry is
starting to church. She said, this isn't going to be

(15:45):
a church in the traditional sense, and I said, no, Mom,
I said, you know, there's there's uh, you know, these
brick and mortar churches, you know, on every single corner.
But but yet you know they're really not helping. You
know that the people in the community. I see, We're
gonna do something. It's gonna be like Jesus trying to
meet people's immediate needs first. And towards the end of

(16:08):
my football career, God he really shared with me that
there was a big focus on hunger and feeding his people,
helping to feed our local communities. And I tried to
stray away, you know from I said, there's farms all
around us. You know, there's John Deer tractors all around

(16:30):
us here in the South. You know, while is, they're
still hungry. And when I took a closer look, I
saw the food insecurity that plagues some many different states,
North Carolina being ranked the tenth and the nation as
far as food and security, and so by the statistics,
those numbers mean that one in five children here in

(16:52):
North Carolina don't know where their next meal is going
to come from. Some counties exercised one and four children.
And so even though we're surrounded by a lot of agriculture.
You look at what's being grown and you see a
lot of tobacco, cotton, industrial corn, soybeans, and none of
those things. Can people harvest out of those fields and

(17:14):
prepare and make a meal for themselves, you know that evening.
That also causes a lot of food deserts. If there's
an area for you, for ministry, for church to be
found at where where people can really make a difference,
that's wisdom for life. And what we do here at
First Groups Farm and so we do not offer regular

(17:37):
church services, not indoors. But what we do offer is
regular worship services outdoors in our in our fields, harvesting,
cultivating and tending to the crops. And so every Tuesday,
Thursday and Saturday morning will have a faithful group of
volunteers that come out. I'll give them a many sermonette,

(18:01):
will pray over the farm and the crops, and then
I'll send them out. We'll go out there, we will
work and labor and love for a few hours, you know,
harvest you know, the awesome crops out there in the field,
and then distribute to the local food banks, soup kitchens
and churches. Is making a difference because You're given the
best part of yourself, and that's your heart. These days,

(18:29):
Jason's football career almost seems like it's a chapter from
someone else's life. He does keep up with a few
former teammates like Tony Pashos, the former offensive lineman for
the Ravens and Browns now an attorney, but actually watch football.
Jason doesn't have time for that, to be honest, turner

(18:50):
on my television and watching a three hour game is
a luxury that I don't have. There's been times where
I picked up the TV remote the turn on the
television and I told my wife, we haven't thrown the
TV in more than two weeks. Honestly, It's like, you
don't miss it, and then all sat at the same time,

(19:11):
there's certain things out there that you might not care
to miss, right. I remember he was back in two
thousand and sixteen, I think going on two thousand and seventeen.
Tony Pashos, Yeah, you know, the big Greek. He and
I would definitely keep up with one another. He would
text me and call me. He was like, man, do

(19:32):
you see what's going on in the news right now?
I'm like, no, what's going on? Man? You didn't see
what Trump tweeted. He was like, you don't know what's
going on with Russia. I'm like, dude, I got a farm,
depends too, all right, nobody's gonna come and help me
throw these seeds or you know, get these crops out
of the ground. It's like, somebody's got to get it done.
I'm working harder now than I ever did, you know,

(19:55):
preparing and training, you know, for the NFL. I might
not be going up against klode Nada all right in
practice every single day, but I have had to heard
some of my cows. Okay, now let me tell you this.
I have some thousand pounds, you know, cows out here

(20:15):
that are just as athletic as a Hall of Fame
running back. And one day they had their corrawl right
behind them. The gate was open, and I said, you
know what, I'm not going to leave them in with
a bucket of sweet feed. I'm gonna be a cowboy. Okay,
I'm an offensive running you know, I can stop this
big cow from getting past me. Right and this big

(20:37):
cow I see about five hundred pounds. I said, yeah,
you know what, if I can take on a big
d tackle, this cast is not getting past me, and
this cast gave me the head bacon one direction, the
head bacon the opposite direction, and broke my ankles. Like
I was down to the ground like so fast, and

(21:00):
I was like, are you serious? Like I was so
glad nobody was around the witnesses because it was a
very humbling an embarrassing moment at the same time. And
I have countless of those humbling stories out here on
the farm. It's just a different walk of life. Sounds
like somebody needs to sign that cow. Yes, you know,

(21:21):
the cows are not big and slow, man, They're very athletic.
So your day, you know, you and your wife have
five children, and your day begins early. I take it.
You know what's a typical day. Oh yes, I'm up
at five am every single morning. See it at the table.
It's my children for devotion and discipleship. And I'm out
the door by six am because it's so nice and

(21:43):
cool in the morning. I'll skip breakfast, put in a
full six hours outdoors so that i'm done by lunchtime.
At noon to take a break, you know, come back,
can take a shower, and then if I need to
do some tractor work. That that's when I'll get into
my tractor and ride around. It's got a nice air

(22:04):
condition cab and that that's kind of like film study,
you know for me. After you finish all your outdoor stuff,
you can come back and steal getting about another you know,
three or four hours, you know, during that in the afternoon,
but is sun up still sundowns just about every day,
especially in the growing season. Jason has zero regrets. He

(22:24):
has never feared, not for one second, that walking away
from football was the wrong thing to do. This year's
horrific coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying economic meltdown have only
strengthened his conviction. Millions of people are unemployed, vulnerable, in
desperate need of life's basic necessities, starting with food on

(22:47):
the table, which Jason produces. Here's the revelation that God
had shared with me before I finished playing football, is
that there was going to be a famine in the land,
that people were going to be a need and people
are going to be hungry, that there's going to be
shortages of food. And for several years now we've been

(23:09):
planning and preparing and sowing our regular crops and faith,
not knowing exactly you know when we're going to be
called into action, but that time is right now. There's
forty million people unemployed in our nation right now. You know,
a lot of food processing plants are shut down. There

(23:29):
are ripples being sent all throughout our food system. And yes,
those statistics that I share with you earlier about food
and security, they're much worse right now. And so this
is a time where where yes, you know, we're activated,
first brief farm, we're called into action to go above
and beyond what we normally do and what we normally grow.

(23:52):
But at the same time, you know, to be a
beacon of lights to our community and say every little
bit helps. It's a time of pessimis for some people.
It's tough times. And you know, are you optimistic? Whether
I am so encouraged right now more so than I

(24:12):
ever have before. And that is in light of the
protesting and the riots that are going on all around
our country. Changes is going to come one of two ways.
Change is going to come through motivation or it's going
to come through desperation. A lot of people are are
hurting right now, and I see the hurt, and I

(24:35):
see the pain. But but guess what, it's an opportunity
for us to love on our neighbors. It's an opportunity
for us to stick a hand out and give people
a hand up. At the same time, it's an opportunity
for now for healing to take place. And guess what
when a person heals, Yeah, there might be a scaff

(24:56):
over that wound, but it's going to get stronger, all right.
And it's just like with my family. Anyone who's been
a part of a family or a relationship, you know
that there's growing pains. And one thing that has always
taken place in our country that there's some horrible things
that have taken place in the past. There's still some
horrible things that are that are going on right now,

(25:17):
but it's still growing pains. Come on now, like even siblings,
my children, guess what, I've got to break up some
fights every once in a while, I've got to I remember,
even myself with myself, my two older siblings. Yeah it's
a figure of speech, but yeah, sometimes it looked as
though we were literally trying to kill each other. And

(25:38):
those are growing pains. But we're family, like we love
one another. And so one thing that every American has
to look at right now is whether you're black, white, brown, race,
creed color, we're in this together. We are a nation
that yeah, it's a boiling pot, it's a melting pot
of so many different people. But the example that I

(25:58):
look at and that myself and many other athletes are
calling on right now is look at all of our
different sports teams out here. I don't miss the game
of football, but if there's anything that I miss, it's
my brothers. I've got my white brothers, my black brothers,
my Hispanic brothers, Russian Congan samoan man. I've played with

(26:22):
a diverse group of men from all different walks of life,
all different backgrounds, and you know what, we were able
to come together as a family. We were able to
work together and a shared common goal, and we were
able to go out there and do some pretty special stuff.
We sad, blood, sweat and tears, you know, to together.

(26:44):
And that wasn't just me at the NFL level. I
did that when I was in college. I did that
when I was in high school and in middle school.
And so if these young kids can figure out how
to do it on a sports team, then what the
heck is wrong with the rest of our country. We
just got to learn how to come together in love

(27:06):
and figure it out. Okay, that's it the first episode
of season two. You can find out more about Jason's
career and his life at Baltimore Ravens dot com slash
what Happened to That Guy? He was a unique subject
and I'd like to thank you for taking the time
to speak to me. Another episode of What Happened To

(27:28):
That Guy will drop in two weeks, and they'll keep
coming every other week for the rest of the twenty
twenty season. I hope you'll find them interesting. If you
like what you're hearing, don't hesitate to leave a five
star rating or write a review. Also subscribe so you
don't miss any episodes. This podcast is part of the
Baltimore Ravens Podcast Network, which also includes The Lounge hosted

(27:53):
by Ryan Mink and Garrett Downing, and new this year,
Black in the NFL hosted by my colleague Clifton Brown.
Wherever you get your podcasts, just search for the Baltimore
Ravens Podcast Network and everything will come up. Good stuff
all around. This is John Eisenberg. I'll talk to you
in two weeks.