Derrick Brown

Last year, seventh round pick out of Cincinnati.

The only time I saw him on the ground the whole day was when he put Derrick Brown down on the ground.

Derrick Brown, pretty damn good defensive tackle, too.

You see the first opening touchdown here to Tucker Kraft.

You just watch him.

That's Derrick Brown on his nose.

An all-pro.

But you just watch him handle him.

But I do think there's some tendencies and things that we'll be able to look at and see a clear differentiation of his scheme versus Angelo Vero's, or at least philosophy-wise, that you'll see the Panthers implement.

Could it be a guy like Aaron Hall getting on the field more? Derrick Brown in his more natural position, in my opinion, coming back to the 4-3.

Obviously, guys like Bobby Okereke and Devin Lloyd are still in their roles.

I mean...

They went on to allow the most points in NFL history.

Um, there's important context around 2024, Derek Brown, the team's best player, probably that entire year, um, or the most talented player would have been the most talented player that year in 2024 got hurt in week one.

And so like that defense was just doomed from the start in 2024.

And they went on to have a historically bad season, but even after 2024, Dave can Alice was like, yo, EJ Evro is my defensive coordinator.

The front office realigned, as Zach's cat goes on in the background, the front office realigned the contracts of EJ Evro and Dave Canales to ensure that they're on the same timeline.

That is how strong everything was going into 2026, and then something happened this year, and it all changed.

You mentioned in, you know, the Derek Brown injury and how that kind of derailed the season.

The say that there's been one injury to derail the defense this year is an understatement.

in the NFL with Devin Lloyd and Bobby Okereke.

You've got one of the best defensive linemen in the NFL in Derrick Brown.

Now, of course, the corners that you had, the starting corners, they're hurt.

But there's been some good additions through the draft.

It's like, okay, nothing's changing.

I said it to you last night when we did our Panthers playbook right after the game last night against the Packers.

I said, did Derrick Brown play? Like did Derrick Brown play? Man, I saw Devin Lloyd blitzing sometimes, saw Bobby Okereke recover a fumble and such, but I'm like, did Derrick Brown play? Did Turk Wharton play? that a reason why i bring these things up is that i mean these are talented players i mean these guys were coveted i mean derek brown's a top draft pick he was you know one of these is one of the best defensive linemen in the in the nfl especially stopping the run supposedly but we haven't seen him do that i think this is the question now of again a message sent to everyone on the staff you need to maximize the players that you have available what you have available is what you have available You can't just sit there and go, well, I got injuries.

Throw your hands up and just sit there and say, all right, well, until I get my top guys back, oh, well, you can't do that.

And getting back to the conversation about the draft picks here, let's just go through this entire thing because the Bears have their own second and third round pick this year.

I would... probably bet that what they're going to end up doing with one of those two picks is trading down and that's just because ryan poles is going to want more draft capital because he'd rather take more swings than sit there with only a handful of picks and then the bears do have their that fifth round pick acquired from atlanta in the gervon dexter trade now the key thing with that to really understand is that the bears are completely content with having that fifth round pick because if the season goes the way a lot of people project it to That's probably going to be an early or even a mid-fifth round pick, not a late fifth round pick, had it been the Bears' own fifth rounder, which, again, they originally sent to the Patriots for Garrett Bradbury, and the Patriots took that fifth rounder and sent it to the Eagles in the A.J. Brown deal.

And they still have this...

the sixth and seventh round pick as well now the more intriguing part for me is you get to 2028 and that's where they don't have a first round pick because of the jeffrey simmons trade but then you look at it and they do have a second third and fourth round pick they've got two picks in the fifth round and then they have a sixth and seventh round pick as well now i bring this up simply because I get a feeling that the Bears are not done tangoing here and that Khalil Mack is probably going to be a bear very soon.

It says his cap number is going to be 22 and a half million.

So you're telling me you're getting one of the best defensive tackles in the league for the 14th highest rate.

I mean, you got Chris Jones at 38 million, Derek Brown at 31 million.

Vitavia and Nani Matabuike at $30 million.

And more and more you see, you know, just man and more of that focus there.

I think the biggest thing here is and you brought it up with Derrick Brown.

Right.

When you have so much money on that line and that's between Jalen Phillips, Turk Wharton, Derrick Brown.

Right.

And then you look at Devin Lloyd as well, who's making upwards of 17 million dollars a year.

But if they do it, hey, you know what? Let's see if the cost is right.

But if the Derek Brown thing, maybe you can touch on that.

Pat Jones is decent, but he's not going to explode and give you splash plays.

Derrick Brown, the conversation has been coming into my mentions about let's trade Derrick Brown.

I think that would be a mistake.

I just don't

That could be an off-season question.

It could be.

And, you know, you and I had the discussion about Derrick Brown back during the draft when he was picked.

And I have to remind people still of what you said about Derrick.

He's out there because you have no other options.

Derrick Brown was practically non-existent last night on defense.

Bobby Okereke was jumping around, jumped on a fumble.

He was happy about that, dapped some guys up.