Miles (Touchdown) Brown! The path from high school running back to Roughriders defensive tackle

Miles Brown amassed more than a mile of offence over his final two seasons of high school football. 

And he did that as a 260-pound running back at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. 

For insights into what life was like as a steamroller, we approached Brown — now a 6-foot-2, 320-pound defensive tackle — after he practised with the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Thursday at Mosaic Stadium. 

“I was pretty lethal, man,” Brown, 25, said with a laugh. “I can’t remember how many touchdowns I scored, but I had over 1,000 yards rushing in my senior season. 

“I was pretty good. I miss it sometimes.” 

The same sentiment could not possibly be held by those who were tasked with the immense, unenviable challenge of trying to tackle, or even contain, Brown when he was a two-way terror for the Sidwell Friends Quakers. 

As a junior, he rushed for 400 yards and seven touchdowns in addition to registering 72 defensive tackles and five sacks. That was on top of posting a 23-0 record as a high school wrestler. 

He followed up in 2014, his senior year, by (inhale) rushing 136 times for 1,012 yards, catching 22 passes for 314 yards, making 97 tackles, registering two sacks and adding two interceptions (exhale) while seeing duty as a running back, tight end and defensive lineman. 

Total touchdowns scored as a senior: 28. 

Twenty-eight! 

“I was bigger than a lot of people,” Brown said. “I was bigger than my O-line, except for maybe one or two people. 

“And around the league, there weren’t many people who were massive.” 

So how, then, did he become a running back? 

“Growing up, all my friends were smaller, so I couldn’t do big-boy stuff,” Brown explained. “I just had to do whatever we did. 

“So we would just do parkour (a quickness-based training regimen that includes an obstacle course) and run around. I think playing different sports allowed me to have pretty good feet. 

“In my sophomore year of high school, I played guard. Then in the off-season, I was outside throwing the football around and one of my teammates threw me a 40-yard bomb. I caught it with one hand. 

“My offensive co-ordinator was out there. I was 280 at the time and he’s like, ‘If you drop 40 pounds, I’m going to make you a running back,’ so I dropped 25.” 

Rival defensive players typically dropped to the turf over the next two seasons as Brown left a trail of destruction in his wake. 

Understandably, recruiters took notice, but with an emphasis on his prowess and potential as a defensive lineman. 

“There was no chance of me playing running back in college,” Brown said. “Maybe only one team that recruited me was looking at me as a running back, an H-back, or whatever they call that tight end/fullback/halfback kind of guy. 

“Other than that, it was completely D-line. Everybody was like, ‘Man, if you can move like that at 260, you can make it 280 or 300 and still be pretty good.’ 

“So, going into college, it was all D-line.” 

Brown ended up joining Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., where he started all but one game over four seasons. 

After going undrafted in 2019, Brown signed with the Arizona Cardinals and played in three games as a rookie, becoming one of the few Wofford Terriers graduates to ascend to the NFL. 

“I’m just thankful that God allowed that for me,” Brown said. “It’s something that I planned on my whole life — something I prayed about my whole life. 

“It was just beautiful that I had that opportunity. I’m uber-grateful for that chance.” 

Following subsequent NFL stints with the Tennessee Titans and Detroit Lions, he was without a team for a few months before signing with Saskatchewan on Feb. 25, 2022. 

“I was at home for a while,” Brown recalled. “That’s not fun. Pro football isn’t always fun. Actually, at times, it’s really, really, really, really hard, so I’m extremely grateful. 

“Just to be able to do this, it’s tough, and it’s not what people see on Saturdays and Sundays and all that stuff. There’s a lot that goes into it to, just to be able to be here, so I’m thankful.” 

The Roughriders, in turn, are thankful for his presence. 

In 13 games last season, Brown registered two sacks, 21 defensive tackles and two fumble recoveries. 

During the off-season that followed, Brown made it a priority to provide other people with the type of help, hope and guidance that he had received as a youngster. 

“I work at a group home (in Bethesda, Md.),” said Brown, who has one sack and five defensive tackles for a 2023 Roughriders team that is to return to action Saturday against the host B.C. Lions (5 p.m., TSN, CKRM). 

“I went to an after-school program growing up, and I’m extremely grateful for them, too, because if it wasn’t for that program, things could have turned out a lot differently for me. 

“So I went back to that program and had a small mental health awareness talk with some of the kids there. 

“I do enjoy being in the community. I enjoy being able to be a light or some kind of help to people.” 

He also enjoys being able to pay it back by returning to the UNIQUE Learning Center in Washington, D.C., and working with kids who are a reflection of his younger self. 

“For me, it was the village,” Brown said. “My mom (LaVerne) did an amazing job. She did absolutely everything. But there was a village, and the village was very important for me to be where I am. 

“As much as I can be that for somebody else, I think that’s a great thing.” 

Especially when you consider the challenges that young people can face growing up in Washington, D.C., which has one of the highest crime rates in the United States. 

“You can get caught up in D.C.” Brown cautioned. “No fault to people who don’t know, but having the opportunity to see outside of D.C. allowed me to look at things differently and value things. You value different things in life than maybe I was seeing every day. 

“Being able to see outside of that is very important for anybody and everybody. That’s why I like to be in the community — just being able to see something different. 

“If the only thing you know is what you know, you’ll never know anything else. Until someone removes you from that environment or removes you from whatever it is that you only know, I think it makes it a lot harder to grow. 

“I’ve seen that in my own life. I’ve seen that with some of my peers. So, as best I can, I try to be an aid to somebody.”