Patriots’ Rock-Hard Undertaker Has Soft Side

As Vincent Brown ponders the question, he folds his arms across his chest and takes a deep breath. As he does, his shoulder muscles rise like a great drawbridge, his chest grows wider than an eight-lane highway and his arms, which seem to house most of the world’s surplus steel cable, ripple in ungodly fashion.

But the easygoing smile on his face shows that Vincent is not even trying to do anything ungodly. He isn’t straining or showing off. He’s thinking. Imagine how he looks when he’s flexing.

During the New England Patriots’ second-year linebacker’s college days at Mississippi Valley State, a sports announcer dubbed him “The Undertaker,” because he didn’t so much tackle opponents, he buried them.

The Patriots’ publicist has already warned you that Brown doesn’t like being called “The Undertaker,” and so you ask him about it and he folds his arms and his already huge muscles swell and you wonder if this is where your life will end, here in a deserted hallway in the Bryant College gym on a beautiful summer afternoon.

Then you see the smile.

“The nickname’s been blown out of proportion,” Brown said. “But it doesn’t bother me that much. I don’t care what you call me.”

Call him Vincent. Talking to him, you can quickly see he’s definitely not a Vince. “Vince” suggests a wiseacre, a cutup. “Vincent” suggests a contemplative, serious person. That’s Brown. Despite -- or is it because of? -- his forbidding physique, he’s probably one of the sweetest guys on the Patriots, a soft-poken Atlanta native who speaks in carefully crafted sentences and reads and writes poetry in his spare time.

Poetry is as much an outlet for Brown’s frustration as lifting weights is. When he missed the first four days of training camp last season while his agent and the Patriots were haggling over salary, Brown wrote a poem about his contract negotiations.

Writers love the poetry angle, but Brown is reluctant to discuss his poetry or show it around, out of concern, he says, that people might view him as a self-promoter, or as someone who doesn’t have his priorities straight.

Brown’s priorities are to not make waves and to make the Patriots’ starting lineup this season. Both seem like good bets.

“I was taught that if you work hard and treat people kindly,” Brown said, “good things will happen to you.”

Brown’s beliefs were borne out when the Patriots selected him on the second round of the 1988 draft, the 44th player chosen overall. He played on special teams, started three games at linebacker and saw considerable action in a fourth game against the Cincinnati Bengals when Ed Reynolds injured an ankle.

What slowed Brown’s progress is what slows that of so many rookie linebackers, especially those from smaller schools: reading coverages, being able to go to the right spot without having to waste a precious split second thinking about where to go.

“I expected it (the NFL) to be much more physical than it was,” Brown said. “I didn’t expect it to be as tough mentally as it was.”

To hasten his adjustment, Brown, a criminal justice major in college who hopes to attend law school some day, hung around New England for part of the off-season and studied game films two days a week. Still, physically gifted as he is, he knows that experience is the only real teacher he needs.

“Once the coaching staff feels confident with me (in the game), they’ll be pleased with what I’m able to do,” Brown said. “It takes time to develop the savvy and know-how the other guys (veterans) have. I’m expecting big things out of myself.”

Brown is definitely Coach Raymond -- never “Ray” -- Berry’s kind of guy. Berry calls Brown “one of the finest young men to ever come to this team.”

Which is all well and good, but Brown wouldn’t have been chosen on the second round if that’s all he was. What he is is a 6-foot-2, 245-pound sinewy mass who could shame most statues into putting on clothes. He has a 20-inch neck and wears a custom-made size 54 sports jacket. He can half-squat 800 pounds and bench-press 490 pounds.

Guys who can bench-press double their weight are almost as hard to find as 7-footers who can bring the ball upcourt. At minicamp, Brown benched 250 pounds 26 times. His body fat was measured at 7.8 percent. Leading one to conclude that rocks must also have 7.8 percent body fat.

When it comes to pumping iron, as with penning poetry, Brown is reluctant to extol his feats. He admits to having won a poetry-writing contest in high school and being able to heft a lot of weight in the gym, but he does not intend to be anyone’s sideshow. He intends to be a football player. A good one.”