Brown showed glimpses last season of why the Ravens selected him in the first round, as he tied a franchise rookie record with seven touchdown catches despite playing with a screw in his left foot after undergoing surgery. from Lisfranc less than a year earlier. One of Brown’s coaches, PJ Quarrie, said Ravens fans have yet to see the real Brown.
“Interviews with three coaches who worked with Brown this offseason show a player hell-bent on dominating and healthy enough to do it,” Shaffer wrote. “Now he is stronger and faster, a more complete receiver. But it is not the highlights of social media that have astonished them; it is Brown’s total commitment to rebuild his body, almost from scratch.”
Quarrie said her first sessions with Brown focused on increasing her foot strength.
“We took it all the way back, like, basic walking,” Quarrie said. “Walk, proper way to move, build it, and then you go from there.”
Brown progressed rapidly. The next step was to get there faster, or at least as fast as before the surgery. To that end, Brown worked with Daniel Harper, a high school athletic trainer and club team coach. Harper exercised Brown that focused on running uphill.
“During a series of exercises, Harper made Brown climb the first hill with one foot: the bottom half with his left, the top half with his right, no stops allowed,” Shaffer wrote. “It was like asking someone to climb a ladder with a beaten toe.”
As is evident from Brown’s physical appearance in his videos, it has also increased. After playing around 170 pounds in Oklahoma, the 5-foot-9-inch Brown told the Bleacher Report that he had dropped to 157 at one point last season. It is now a “solid” 180, Quarrie said.
Harper has also served as Brown’s strength and conditioning coach and nutritionist.
“Brown’s striking physique has been rigorously sculpted, the product of open (bench press) and closed (rear squat) kinetic chain workouts,” Shaffer wrote.
Harper said “there are no vanity exercises; every movement has a functional application.”
“Let’s say Brown needs to beat press coverage against a bigger cornerback,” Shaffer wrote. “Harper had him set up in a flexed position, his hands taking a medicine ball. The goal is not just to go down and up; it’s to explode over a nearby 6-inch obstacle, absorb shock, make another medicine push the ball up, then explode over the same obstacle, over and over. “
Quarrie said: “He is doing it the right way. His body understands, ‘OK, I have these additional 15, but we know how to move forward with them.’ And it doesn’t seem like he’s missed a step. In any case, it’s more explosive and such. turn even faster at 180 “.
