There were tears in the immediate aftermath of his sudden trauma: Then-rookie safety Sydney Brown, just one week after his sensational 99-yard interception return for a touchdown, suffered a torn ACL in his right knee just minutes into the regular-season finale at the New York Giants. He called his twin brother, Chase, a running back with the Bengals. He realized the outlook, that his injury and rehabilitation could take him deep into the 2024 season or even later than that.
And he let loose with some emotion.
"There was a moment in the locker room where I'm sitting there crying and I had a moment with Big Dom (Dom DiSandro, team's senior advisor to the general manager/chief security officer/gameday coaching operations), where he's talking with me and he's telling me it's going to be a process and that I have to keep a positive mindset. I'm sitting there thinking, 'Am I going to come back and be the same?' I was thinking about the whole nine-to-12-month process and what it was going to be like for me and everything I was going to go through, and what I got from Dom in that moment was, like, it's best to have a positive mindset to have a positive outcome.
"From that moment on, I had my time to grieve about it, and within 12 hours of the injury, I had a plan of when I wanted to be back, what I was going to do … in my mind where I wanted to be at certain points in the process."
And the result, as Brown has had his practice window opened after beginning the 2024 season on the Physically Unable To Perform List, took part in Monday's walkthrough practice, and is ready and raring to go when the Eagles have a full practice on Wednesday?
"I freaking dominated it," Brown said, eyes lighting up, smiling, a ball of energy. "If I could go back in time and say, 'Would I tear my ACL again or not?' I would say, 'I would tear the heck out of my ACL again' because of all the lessons of perseverance, overcoming mental fatigue, the way I embraced the entire grind of it. Being tough. Being smart about the process and doing my job every single day to make sure that I am going to be a better player when I touch the field again."
While it is still undetermined if and when Brown will be activated from PUP – the Eagles have 21 days to make that decision, to either add him to the 53-man active roster or place him on season-ending Injured Reserve – the 2023 third-round draft pick from Illinois plans to go full speed and relish any plan the team has for him. He spent every day in the spring and in summer's Training Camp watching practice in the end zone taking mental reps. Brown has dug in mentally and physically and he has no doubt – zero, zero, zero – that when it is his time to play and no matter what role he has, he's going to be a better football player than he was as a rookie when Brown played in 339 defensive snaps, had 38 total tackles, three passes defensed, one fumble recovery, one tackle for loss, the huge interception return for a score against Arizona in 14 games that included six starts.
Now it's time to do it.
"The waiting, the anticipation, all that – I feel like I've already been through all that," he said. "This bye week went by really slow, to be honest, but it was a good time. I took time to mentally reset, give my knee some rest, go see my brother (whose Bengals team played Baltimore), and did some things for me.
"I am prepared to go. I'm telling you, there isn't one phase of this that I don't think I didn't dominate. I think I attacked it exactly as I needed to and that's my job – to learn the playbook, to be dialed in, and be a part of the team. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else and seeing the guys play, man, it made me even hungrier. Positive energy. I'm here to contribute and do whatever I can do to help the team win. I take it rep by rep, day by day. They will make the best decision for the team. I know that I'm going to compete. I know that I'm going to go out there and do my job and be smart and dependable and contribute to the core values of this football team."
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