Today is a game day for Giants’ kicker Josh Brown. But then so was yesterday. And tomorrow. And the day after that. It is a way of thinking drilled into the 11-year veteran during his time with coach Mike Holmgren in Seattle.
“Coach Holmgren told me that every single day of practice is a game and we can’t afford misses,” said Brown, 34. “Coming out with that mentality, it’s a game day today. So the night before, we’ve got to rest. We’ve got to eat right. We’ve got to do the right thing.”
Since signing with the Giants in March, Brown has seen nothing conflicting with that view. Actually, he has seen things he had not seen during some of his time in Seattle, St. Louis and last season for four games with Cincinnati.
“Speaking from experience and comparably speaking to other places that I’ve been without mentioning those places,” Brown said, “the level of professionalism here should be league wide, but it is not.”
Brown, whose career field-goal accuracy is 81.3 percent, knows he is following a fan favorite, Lawrence Tynes, who twice kicked overtime field goals that sent the Giants to Super Bowls. Tynes has landed with the Buccaneers.
“He did some great things for the organization,” said Brown, who was with Seattle in its loss to Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XL. “But you have to stick to the old saying of, ‘control what you can control.’ I cannot control the fans’ image of Lawrence Tynes. My job is to do my job and instill that trust in the fans as well.”
As long as kickers have jobs. Brown laughed about the Pro Bowl wrinkle eliminating kickoffs. Are they putting kickers out of jobs?
“I actually thought that,” Brown said. “I’m like, ‘This is just a precursor of things to come.’ But in the Pro Bowl, it actually makes a lot of sense.”
Yeah, “multimillion dollar franchise wide receivers” handling kickoffs is whacky. About as whacky as a fan-friendly segment in Brown’s former Seattle TV show — “Can You Kick It?”
“People kicking trash cans to food to loaves of bread to footballs.” Brown said. “It was a lot of fun.”
Stuffy he’s not, yet he’s all about business. And the business of kicking for the Giants became easier through his relationship with his holder, punter Steve Weatherford.
“I’ve trained with Josh Brown for four years in the offseason … so I’ve got an existing relationship with him as far as how he wants the ball held, his training routine, personality,” Weatherford said. “I knew he was a hard-working guy that would fit in well with Zak [DeOssie, long snapper], and I with his willingness to prepare. He’s a high-character, come- early, stay-late guy. It’s been a joy.”
Brown said he feels the same toward Weatherford and DeOssie.
“You’ve got [three] veterans working together that want to be great and want to be on all the time,” Brown said. “To have three guys living like that, this has been a seamless transition.”