Brown keeps tight grip on the ball — and his job
RECORD: Lions returner hasn’t lost a fumble all year as team poised to shatter 45-year-old CFL record
It was a simple drill in training camp in Kamloops, and among those participating at the time included perhaps the one player on the B.C. Lions who valued ball security like job security.
It’s likely about to manifest itself in a CFL record. It’s worked out pretty well for Tim Brown too.
Barring an uncharacteristic case of the dropsies against the Saskatchewan Roughriders Saturday, the Lions will break a 45-year old record they share with the 1967 Ottawa Rough Riders for the fewest turnovers in a season, one of several reasons they have already secured a trip to the West Division final. The ’67 Riders and 2006 Lions each had 28 turnovers. The number this year through 17 games: 22.
Brown, as the Lions’ kick return specialist, is a big part of the success, having not lost a fumble all year. The skill may come naturally and helps if you want to return kicks for a living, but it also doesn’t hurt to possess a general approach that the football is like your job. Lose it and consider yourself unemployed.
Brown says it’s always been his nature to think that way. When special teams were being singled out by Mike Benevides at the start of the season, he thought the coach was talking about him.
Benevides stood with his team inside a circle one day at training camp and talked about becoming the team with the fewest turnovers in the league this year. Brown then took part in a drill which the coach said won him a roster spot, and been helping the Lions flip field position ever since.
“They say it takes 28 days to form a habit. That was one of the better habits they wanted us to form,” Brown said.
“Keep the ball in your arm high and tight. Being little they want to take big shots at you and the ball.”
It looked as though the Lions were intent on replacing Brown, perhaps because his 1,569 return yards during his rookie season in 2011 wasn’t enough. At least that’s the way it looked, because Brown always tends to think he’s being singled out. As a motivational force, it works.
“I thought that way even when things weren’t going well last year,” he said.
“They’d look at you funny. You’re always trying to read body language. [Benevides] came into a meeting one day and said ‘your jobs are on the line’ and me being me, I took it upon myself to say ‘that’s referring to you’. It wasn’t so much fear of failure. I don’t want to be cut.”
It didn’t really sink in that Brown wasn’t going to get cut until teammates Jason Arakgi, Lin-J Shell and Byron Parker calmed him down one day. All Brown has done has become the division leader with 2310 return yards. It’s a total which goes unrecognized because he has four fewer return touchdowns than Hamilton’s Chris Williams.
Brown was also 144 yards starting play Thursday behind Toronto’s Chad Owens, whose offensive numbers give him a big lead in combined yards which goes beyond special teams work.
Not bad for a guy who thought his next fumble was going to be his last with the Lions. Not bad for a team which preached ball security on a practice field this spring with a goal and is about to be rewarded.