Q. Do you feel there's a big target and team has some chemistry now?
PHARAOH BROWN: I feel very confident in what I can do right now it's just building trust with the offense and with everybody.
Q. What is it about Jordan's personality --
PHARAOH BROWN: He's just an overall funny guy. Y'all kind of seen him yesterday but he's just naturally just funny. He's just his self. I think that's what it is.
Q. You talked about some of the off-season work you put in. Are you seeing that paying off in training camp?
PHARAOH BROWN: Yeah, I feel good. My body feel good. It's just a process, everything is going as how I envision it and how I seen it. So for me it's just a narrow focus and focusing day-by-day and just following the process.
Q. Is it a feet thing? Is it a strength thing? Combination of everything?
PHARAOH BROWN: It's a mental thing, me versus me. I'm definitely way faster. I joke with the tight ends because I got the fastest time right now in camp. I'm waiting for them to beat it but they are not going to beat it yet because everybody's legs heavy right now.
I know Seth, he said he was going to beat it yesterday, so we see if he beat -- it's just everything for me.
Q. What about how you guys are using this offense and what are you looking forward to about playing?
PHARAOH BROWN: I'm looking forward just to -- Pep is a smart guy. He puts us in a lot of good situations and it's just building on top of that. Yesterday in the red zone, I caught the fade just one-on-one with a small corner. Today we came back and hit him with a slant. So now that road is growing, being able to flex out and take advantage of little small DBs.
Q. How instrumental are you with --
PHARAOH BROWN: I mean, Vernon's growing. I'm just always there. Whenever he needs me, I'm there. Whenever he asks questions, I'm there. I just give him advice and just help him as I see fit.
Q. Is the vibe different with Lovie and the coaching staff? What's it been like now for you guys?
PHARAOH BROWN: I mean, it's a great vibe. The vibe's definitely different from last year. Everybody's buying in. Lovie commands a certain respect, a certain discipline. You know, he's kind of cool, laid back but he's kind of like your -- like your father, like you know, you ain't going to really try him, you know what I mean. Even though he's calm and cool, it's that respect factor that he has.
Q. What did you learn from last season and how did that affect what you did this off-season?
PHARAOH BROWN: I learned a lot last season. What I took from it was just my mental, so after the season, I did a lot of stuff, just getting my mind right, getting my body right, just getting everything right. Last year was not one of my best years. So I really just came out just a whole totally different player. I think it was a learning lesson, and you kind of go through that, everything. You have some kind of setbacks and it's kind of helped propel me to where I'm at now.
Q. Did you do anything to your preparation, do anything different with your preparation? Did you add anything, Pilates?
PHARAOH BROWN: I mean, I changed everything. After the season, it was just a full change. I always did like Pilates and stuff like that, but I mean, I was a fat guy last year.
One of the lineman just was like, "I'm proud of you, man. You was a big O-Line tight end last year and now you're out there catching balls."
I told him, "Yeah, I got a new financial advisor and they told me the blocking tight end get minimum." I'm trying to get a David and Joeckel deal after this year, so we have to catch a lot more balls. A lot of that went into it and now I'm right where I want to be.
Q. You talk about your mental state, but talk about how important your family is to that?
PHARAOH BROWN: My family is awesome. You kind of deal with so much outside of here that plays a part of you being on the field, and I mean, my wife was with me every step of the way and going through the same things that I was doing to help me get to where I was at in my mindset.
So we kind of take a family approach to everything and they all do the same thing I do, my mom, she also went on like a retreat with me as well. She's over there video recording. So it helped her because she was -- just moved to Houston and going through some stressful things and I mean, anything that I'm doing, I like to bring my family on to get the same experience. Because no matter what you do, everybody is going through some mental stress and it's really good to take your self-care.
Q. What do you want to see out of yourself this year?
PHARAOH BROWN: My expectations, I want to go out there and be me. I don't have no certain expectations. My expectations is to win a lot of games and get wealthy doing it. So I want to win a lot of meaningful games and I want to get wealthy. I want to have generational wealth. Everything falls right into those two categories for me.
Q. You talk about making the changes in the off-season, but how did you slim down and what are the keys?
PHARAOH BROWN: I feel like the slimming down thing, I'm definitely way slimmer. I don't know what it was because it was kinds of like I was like 280 when I started. When I got here I was 277 and body fat was up. So I dropped my body fat from like 18. I'm like 14.9. So by Week 1, we trying to be down to the lowest I've ever been was like 14.1, so we trying to get to 13.9 percent body fat.
It was kind of like the process I talked about, I was getting on the scale and the weight wasn't changing. Then I came here, and I mean it was just like -- it really was just like trust the process. I really leaned on our people here, Ladd and everybody, and I just kept doing what they were saying and he just kept saying, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. And it was kinds of like when I got back it just happened. I just credit to the process and the support of the people here.
My diet was healthy but it was the small stuff. I eat healthy but I babe all my meet with sweet baby grays, you know what I mean, so it was all the sugar and high fructose corn syrup you don't really notice. You're like, oh, I'm eating healthy but I've got all these sauces and stuff that. Really played a part, the small details that really set it apart.
Q. You have to be excited about playing New Orleans --
PHARAOH BROWN: It's exciting to play the first preseason game. We always going against our guys and even though you wear pads, we still checking. So we taking care of our guys. Nobody is trying to finish a guy. If we got like a crack black block, we going to let the guys know we are not trying to kill them on crack. But Saturday, it's all -- it's fair game.
I'm just excited to see all these young guys and the defensive guys go out there and really hit somebody and the offensive guys, our O-line let the leash off and get after somebody else.
Q. Where are you at weight-wise? Is that something you told yourself?
PHARAOH BROWN: I mean, last year, just watching myself on film, I was moving. I was moving like mole assess. I wasn't athletic. I wasn't explosive. Right now I'm 262 and feel good, feeling fast.
Like I said it was all part of the plan. At this level when you blocking, you know, you get minimum deals, you know what I mean. Blockers get minimum deals in this league. And like I said, I'm trying to win a lot of games and get right -- get wealthy, not rich, get wealthy doing this. You have to catch the ball to get wealthy.
The blocking is still in my toolbox and that's what sets me apart because I can block, I can still line up in the backfield and I also can split out and take advantage of corners. I'm running all kind of routes. My route tree has grow. Right now it's just how will we plan to use me on a week-to-week basis.
Q. Blocking out to special teams, still grinding.
PHARAOH BROWN: Yeah, I never get too big on the football field. I can do anything and everything, whatever is asked of me, kickoff return, punt, punt return, special teams, a lot of guys, they get a certain -- to say certain point in their career where they don't want to do those kind of things but I love the game, I love football. I get out there on kickoff if they let me.
So my coach try to take care of my legs during this time but I still like to get out there and get reps. I'm like on Seal Team Six right now. So if they need me to come in on special teams, I'm definitely -- I'm definitely all for it.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports ....
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports