Andre Brown had just two carries in his well-traveled NFL career, for negative-one yard. But, desperate times called for desperate measures after the Giants lost Ahmad Bradshaw to a neck injury and were losing the game to the Buccaneers.
Brown entered the game and gave the ground game the jump-start it needed.
Brown scored the game-tying two-point conversion with 6:48 left, and the game-winning touchdown with 31 seconds to play. And when it was over, he had helped Big Blue to a come-from-behind 41-34 victory over Tampa Bay.
“I haven’t had that many carries since high school. It took me four years to even have a shot at in the NFL. It felt good,’’ said Brown, who cramped up and required an IV, so unaccustomed to the heavy workload. Not that he was complaining, not after a circuitous route to the NFL that would have made Odysseus road-weary.
“It feels awesome man, especially my situation,” he said. “Y’all know my story, active, inactive, cut 18 million times. Finally, to get an opportunity like this … I’m excited.’’
Brown has been waived eight times since the Giants drafted him in 2009. He made stops in Denver, Indianapolis, Carolina and Washington before Big Blue brought him back last August. He labored on the practice squad last season, working and waiting for his chance — and he finally got it when Bradshaw went down.
“It was an opportunity. I just took advantage of it, really to just go out there and show everybody what I had,’’ said Brown. “I went out there with a chip on my shoulder that I was ready to run the rock, and I did it.’’
After four first-half carries, he had nine in the second, with his two-point conversion knotting it at 27-all. Then he had a nine-yard run with just over a minute left, showing more wisdom than Bradshaw had in the Super Bowl, sagely flopping down at the 2 to burn off more time.
“I heard Eli say, ‘Get down,’ and I was like, ‘I’ve got to get down.’ Then he was like you can go ahead and score on the next play,’’ said Brown. “It was hard, but in the situation, we were going in for the game-winning drive, it was only right. But we came through and I ended up getting the touchdown I wanted.’’
Brown plunged in over left guard on the next play, Victor Cruz gushing “Andre Brown played great football [yesterday].’’
