New England Patriots offensive lineman Trent Brown appeared to be unhappy for a good part of the 2023 season as the team fell into the bottom barrel of the NFL.
Before Brown left the Patriots’ facility for the season, he strongly pushed back on the negative reports that swirled around him over the course of the year. Brown took issue with "anonymous sources" leaking information and denied ever speaking about wanting to join an NFC East team.
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"It’s been a rough year," he told NESN in an interview published Tuesday. "This has been a year like no other that I’ve had in my NFL career as far as the amount of anonymous sources that have come forward to spew complete lies about my character.
"It’s been tough to even go in the building every day knowing that there’s somebody that I probably look at every day, or smiles in my face every day, that is running a smear campaign."
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Brown touched on the Patriots’ struggles, pointing to the departure of Ted Karras, the trade of Shaq Mason and the lack of doing anything to fill the position with the right guys as an issue. He added that he felt as though the Patriots were messing with him during the year.
"I’ve even heard from coaches how they’ll sit in staff meetings and they’ll be talking about how they can f--- with me," he said. "Like, I guess trying to get me out of character or whatever. It’s really crazy to think that we’re spending time talking about that instead of getting better."
Brown said he dealt with injuries and illnesses as well. The one-time Pro Bowler played in 11 games for New England after appearing in all 17 last season.
Even with the issues he said he experienced, he told NESN he would not be "opposed" to re-joining the team for 2024.
New England is going to have a lot of decisions to make, starting with the front office and down.
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