This got totally lost in the Bryan Colangelo madness, but Eagles Pro Bowl guard Brandon Brooks had some interesting things to say about Bill O’ Brien after OTAs the other day.

Background:

Brooks played for O’Brien in Houston before joining the Birds in 2016. O’Brien comes from the Bill Belichick coaching tree, serving in a variety of roles up in New England from 2007 to 2011. With a lot of recent talk about players being unhappy with the Patriots’ culture and stiff method of doing things, Brooks drew parallels to his former Texans coach.

Brandon Lee Gowton wrote it up over at Bleeding Green Nation: 

“It’s crazy that people haven’t known this,” said Brooks. “It’s been this way for like a decade. You’ve seen— Reggie Wayne did it. He retired. He went there [to the Patriots] for a training camp and retired. Shit is not fun there. I was under the same regime in Houston [with O’Brien]. I almost retired. Shit was miserable, every day. Every day.”

“I came in [as a rookie] under [Gary] Kubiak, who was just an older version of Doug [Pederson], then I went to O’Brien, who was Belichick, and then I came back to Doug, who’s like Kubes, so for me, man, shit was great. Like, I cannot tell you how much better this is than it was down there. Like, it’s just night and day. What does [Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland] say? Happy workers make more productive workers. When you’re not having fun, man, those grinding, those hard-ass nosed days …”

Brooks got cut off by fellow Pro Bowler and All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson.

“All the media wants to talk about is rings,” Johnson started. “Rings. I’m going to get this ring and never wear it one day. I’m going to put it away in a box. The only thing you’re going to remember from your playing days, you’re not going to remember the scores. You’re going to remember the people you played with and how you felt. And that’s the truth.

“All these guys talking about ‘I’ll take the rings.’ OK. You can have your rings. You can also have f***ing 15 miserable years.”

I laughed at the part where he described Gary Kubiak as “an older version of Doug Pederson.” Not sure why, but I laughed.

Either way, I think this confirms what we all suspected: the “Patriot Way” makes people miserable.