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The storyline hardly seems important for the first game week of the regular season. But when Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera said Monday he was going back to calling Corey Brown by his nickname, it became a headline.
“It was his decision,” Philly Brown said Wednesday. “He’s the head dude in charge, so you do whatever he wants you to do.
“I was dropping the ball in the preseason. Last year, I didn’t have any issues like this, so it’s him basically just being a realist, telling it like it is.”
Before Rivera told the media on Monday, “Philly catches the ball, Corey’s a nice young man,” he also revealed Brown would start alongside Ted Ginn Sunday in Jacksonville. That his coach still named him the starter speaks to the faith the Panthers have in Brown.
The second-year player insisted he hasn’t lost any confidence despite at least five drops in the preseason. Those, he maintained, are a fixable problem.
“It’s just thinking too much — doing things that aren’t natural to me. Body catches just aren’t something that I’m naturally doing. So [it’s] just getting back to using my hands and focusing more on the ball,” Brown said.
Perhaps Rivera’s plan was to take the focus off what Brown wasn’t doing right. Instead, we’re mostly talking about names.
When pressed about what he would prefer to be called, Brown smiled and said, “Marcellous. That’s my middle name.”
Whether it’s Corey, Philly or Marcellous on the field Sunday in Jacksonville, the Panthers just need Brown to catch the ball. He may not get as many headlines if he does, but that story would be much preferred.
“It’s obviously not a good thing that we’re sitting here talking about dropped passes but at the same time, this is cool,” Brown said.
“Any media attention is good attention, so it doesn’t really matter to me.”[vc_row_inner no_margin=”true” padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column_inner fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/1″][vc_raw_html]
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