Pats called Brown's bluff as DB.(St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Byline: Jim Thomas

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. _ Troy Brown used to tease secondary coach Eric Mangini about playing defensive back. And it was more than a one-time joke.

"I'd been teasing him for a couple years about it," Brown said. "It wasn't something I took real serious. I didn't think it would ever happen."

Until that day in training camp this past summer, when New England coach Bill Belichick walked into the locker room five minutes before practice and told Brown: "You've got some reps today on defense."

"I was (thinking), 'What?'" Brown recalled. "I didn't even know the calls, so I didn't know what to do. He put me out there, put me in one-on-one drills. It was the worst thing you wanted to see, but I kept working at it. I got better at it."

But he never played the position in a game. Until, that is, the afternoon of Nov. 7 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. The Patriots already were missing starting corners Ty Law, a four-time Pro Bowler, and Tyrone Poole, a nine-year NFL veteran.

That made little-known Asante Samuel and the equally unheralded Randall Gay the starters against the Rams. But Samuel went down with a shoulder injury on the Rams' second offensive play. Brown had to go into the game to be the team's nickel back. The Patriots had no other options.