It’s usually not very much fun to go on a diet, but New England’s Trent Brown might enjoy it this offseason and that’s because the Patriots could end up paying him more than $1 million total over the next two seasons if Brown can simply stay under his ideal playing weight.
Over the course of his seven-year NFL career, Brown has had some serious struggles with his weight. According to a report from The Athletic, the offensive tackle weighed more than 400 pounds at one point while playing for the Raiders during the 2020 season, which is extremely high for a guy who was listed on the Las Vegas roster as only weighing 380 pounds.
To encourage Brown to keep his weight in check, the Patriots have included $1.5 million in incentives that are directly tied to his weight over the next two years.
According to ESPN.com, the incentives break down like his:
- $150,000: Brown will get a bonus for this amount if he weighs 385 pounds or less on the first day of the team’s offseason program.
- $75,000: Brown will get $75,000 more if his weight is at 375 pounds on June 1
- $75,000: The offensive tackle will get another check for $75,000 if he’s under 365 pounds on July 15.
- $450,000: The biggest bonus will come during the season. Brown will get $25,000 added to his paycheck each week during the regular season if he’s under 365 pounds at his weekly weigh-in session, which will take place on Thursdays.
That’s a total of $750,000 in bonus money and he can earn that money in both 2022 and 2023, which means Brown has a total of $1.5 million tied to how much he weighs. If I’m Brown, I’m buying Tom Brady’s book ASAP and only eating those recipes for the next two years (Beluga lentil tacos, anyone?)
Based on the incentive package, it’s pretty clear that that Patriots feel that Brown’s ideal playing weight is 365 pounds.
The good news for Brown is that even if he’s overweight, he’ll still get paid. The offensive lineman signed a two-year deal with the Patriots in March that includes $7 million in guarantees, which means he’ll be seeing that money even if he decides to eat 10 Twinkies a day from now until March 2024.
Although Brown’s weight has fluctuated over the years, he’s still managed to put together a pretty successful career, especially when you consider that he entered the league as a seventh-round pick in 2015 when the 49ers selected him in the NFL Draft. After three seasons in San Francisco, the 49ers traded him to New England in April 2018. Brown went on to have one of the best years of his career in New England, which led to a lucrative contract in free agency from the Raiders in 2019.
After a 2019 Pro Bowl season, Brown struggled in 2020, which led the Raiders to ship him off back to New England in a trade that went down in March 2021. Brown then only played in nine games for the Patriots last season due to a calf injury that he suffered in Week 1.
