Troy Brown reportedly a candidate to for WRs coach at Arizona State
BOSTON -- The will he or won't he saga of Troy Brown and the Patriots has taken another turn. And when it comes to returning to Foxboro, it looks like he won't.
Brown was reportedly spotted on the campus of Arizona State University and is a candidate to take over as wide receivers coach for the Sun Devils, according to Noah Furtado of SunDevilSource.
NEW: Former Patriots WR coach Troy Brown, a three-time Super Bowl Champion who was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame in 2012, is on campus at ASU as a candidate to replace Ra'Shaad Samples in the same role.https://t.co/ZXIsoFXBs2
— SunDevilSource.com (@SunDevilSource) April 9, 2024
Arizona State's head coach is Kenny Dillingham, and he just lost his wide receivers coach after Ra'Shaad Samples left for Oregon. Thus, the job became available just this week.
Brown, a member of the Patriots Hall of Fame for his 15-year career during which he won three Super Bowls, has been a member of the Patriots' coaching staff since 2019. He started as part of the NFL's minority coaching fellowship program before coaching kick returners and running backs (as an assistant to longtime Patriots assistant Ivan Fears) in 2020. From 2021-23, Brown was the wide receivers and kick returners coach.
Yet with Bill Belichick gone and Jerod Mayo taking over as head coach, the Patriots hired Tyler Hughes as a new wide receivers coach. That hiring -- along with Brown not wearing any Patriots gear while coaching at the Senior Bowl -- led to some assumptions that Brown would not be a part of the staff, but Mayo told the media on Feb. 21 that Brown was indeed a part of the coaching staff.
"Troy Brown is still on the staff," Mayo said. "Once again, I would say the staff is still pretty fluid, but he is on the staff."
In late March at the owners meetings, Mayo specified that Brown would be serving a "skill development" role on the staff.
That appeared to have been the resolution to Brown's situation, but Tuesday's news quite obviously alters that scenario.
As it stands now, the Patriots don't currently have a specific kick returner or punt returner coach under new special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer. The team has special teams assistant coach Tom Quinn and special teams coaching assistant/quality control Coby Tibbett working under Springer.