Bills will see if trade for Brown pays offWhen the Bills made five trades in three days during last year’s NFL draft, team president Russ Brandon said, “It’s all about preparation.”
Dealing a conditional fourth-round pick for Bryce Brown showed they were preparing for the day when C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson were no longer functioning as the Bills’ versatile running back tandem.
Spiller was entering the final year of his contract. Jackson, the tireless leader, was 33 and past his prime. Both tailbacks had suffered from injuries in recent years. So by getting Brown, the Bills were preparing for the future while ensuring themselves against any present crisis.
The future has arrived sooner than expected. Both Spiller and Jackson went down with long-term injuries in Sunday’s win over the Vikings. Spiller is out for the season with a broken collarbone. After five seasons of largely unfulfilled promise, he has almost surely played his last down as a Bill.
Brown, who hasn’t suited up all season, will go into the lineup, perhaps as a co-feature back, for at least the next month. Brown says he’s confident. Last week, he said he was surprised he hadn’t played by now.
Well, here’s his chance. Doug Whaley traded for him because he felt Brown, who is 6-foot, 220 pounds, had the potential to be a star. Now, Brown gets what amounts to an audition for the role as the Bills’ featured back of the future.
There’s no question he has talent. Five years ago, almost every recruiting service ranked Brown as the best high school football player in America. Lane Kiffin, who recruited him to Tennessee after Brown gave a verbal commitment to Miami, compared him with Reggie Bush.
But Brown left Tennessee when Kiffin took the head job at the University of Southern California a year later. He transferred to Kansas State, near his Wichita home. His older brother, Arthur Brown Sr. (now with the Ravens), was a linebacker there. But Brown hurt his ankle and played just one game for K-State before leaving school.
K-State coach Bill Snyder thought enough of Brown to let him take part in the school’s 2012 pro day. Brown ran a 4.38 in the 40. The Eagles drafted him in the seventh round. Brown made Andy Reid’s last Philly team and played sparingly as LeSean McCoy’s backup for the first half of his rookie season.
Then McCoy went down and Brown got his first start since high school, on “Monday Night Football” against the Panthers. He rushed for an Eagles rookie-record 178 yards and two TDs. The next game, he ran for 169 yards and two TDs.
Brown had fumbling issues in 2012. McCoy, one of the top backs in the NFL, returned from injury. Brown rushed for 314 yards as a backup last year.
But the Bills kept an eye on him. Knowing their running back position was in transition, they went after Brown hard.
We’ll find out if it was a wise investment. At 23, Brown might finally become the star that scouts envisioned when he was a teenager. Either that, or we’ll find out why a guy with all that size, speed and power hasn’t held a starting job since high school.
