Closer Look

Wait is finally over for 15-year Raiders veteran Brown

Tim Brown finished with a game-high nine receptions Sunday. Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

By Don Banks, Sports Illustrated

OAKLAND, Calif. -- For Tim Brown, it was 15 years squeezed into 15 seconds. But the memory just might last a lifetime.

"I'll tell you, man, it's like my whole career went right in front of my eyes," said the Raiders veteran receiver upon realizing his career-long quest to play on a Super Bowl-bound team.

"As I was coming off the field after we scored that last touchdown, I was thinking all the way back to my rookie year, to the year I was hurt, the next year and all the other years. It's amazing what you remember at funny times."

More than any other Raiders veteran, Oakland's 41-24 conquest of Tennessee in Sunday's AFC Championship Game was liberating for Brown, who until now was known as the NFL's version of Ernie Banks. His 1,000-plus career catches, 14,000-plus receiving yards and 97 career touchdowns someday will earn him a place in the Hall of Fame, but without a Super Bowl experience to go with it, the honor might have rung a bit hollow.

"Just to have this opportunity is a great feeling," said Brown, the senior-most Raider in terms of continuous service. "When you've worked as hard as I've worked over the years and came up short so many years, so many times, I'm just happy to have the chance to play in a game like this."

In recent days, Brown said his teammates had made his personal quest a part of their own. It made preparing for Sunday's game a little more difficult, but only deepened his sense of gratitude and accomplishment.

"That's the kind of thing that's pretty tough," Brown said. "because it becomes a little emotional and you have to fight back all that and just try and go out and play and practice the way you're supposed to practice and play.

"Guys all day, all week really, have been coming up to me and saying how much I really deserve to go to the Bowl, and that they're going to go get it done for me. After everything was pretty much settled, it was a pretty overwhelming feeling to know that we're actually going down there [to San Diego]."

Though his role this year has been diminished at times and his 10-year-streak of 1,000-yard receiving seasons was ended, Brown was there Sunday when the Raiders needed him. He caught a team-high nine passes for 73 yards, finishing just six yards behind Rice's total (79 yards on five catches).

"[I'm] ecstatic [for him]," Raiders head coach Bill Callahan said. "You are in this business as a coach to try and help people get to where they want to go, and I feel great about that. To have him get to a Super Bowl and experience that, it's indescribable. I can't even describe the feeling I have for him."

Brown and the Raiders first reached the AFC title game together in January 1991, just his third season in the league. The Los Angeles Raiders lost 51-3 at Buffalo that day, and Brown didn't get back to the threshold of the Super Bowl for another 10 years. When he did, the top-seeded Raiders were upset 16-3 at home by Baltimore.

"After the third year when we went to the AFC Championship Game, we really felt that it would be a yearly thing for us and we'd be able to get back to the playoffs and make it to the big game," Brown said. "But we lost a couple players and the team started falling apart a little bit, and it was a struggle since then.

"Obviously, the last five years we've know we were a better football team and had an opportunity. But we had a chance a couple years ago here and lost it, and then there was last year [and the Snow Bowl in New England]."

Now 36, Brown and this year's veteran-laded Raiders roster were staring at their last best chance to get to the Super Bowl. This time, it was not an opportunity lost.

"When we added the guys we added this year, [Bill] Romanowski, Rod Woodson, Sam [Adams] and [John] Parrella, we knew we could be a good football team," Brown said. "We knew we could be a championship football team."

Mission accomplished. But there's still one more title to chase. In truth, it's the only one that Brown really wants.

"I tried to do my job and do what I had to do this week," Brown said. "But I wanted these guys to play for themselves, because it's not like I'm the only one getting a ring here. Everybody else is going to get a ring, too."

 

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