Getting Big On Brown

Trent’s emergence at tackle has everybody talking.

- Craig Massei

A fine picture of art begins on a blank canvas and develops over many broad strokes of a paintbrush. A magnificent sculpture starts off as a large hunk of stone that needs to be meticulously chipped away at thousands of times before it begins to take form. An exquisite ceramic begins as a mass lump of clay before it’s skillfully and methodically molded into an engaging object.

A masterpiece NFL offensive tackle? Well, that is a work of art that can take a lot of time, effort and dedication to both create and establish, then nurture and polish to perfection.

Trent Brown appears to be on the fast track toward transforming himself from a round mound of untapped potential into a possible franchise cornerstone for the 49ers at one of football’s most significant positions.

Some may say it’s way too soon to be heaping lavish praise and such lofty expectations on Brown, San Francisco’s second-year offensive tackle who still has plenty to prove after entering the NFL last year as an unheralded seventh-round draft selection that the 49ers almost declined to pick at that spot.

But some that ought to know are saying otherwise.

Let’s hear it from Von Miller, the Denver Broncos’ All-Pro outside linebacker, the reigning Super Bowl MVP who rules in today’s game as one of the NFL’s most fearsome edge rushers:

“Trent Brown has a very bright future in the National Football League,” Miller said earlier this summer. “He’s 6-foot-8. He knows how to use his arms, knows how to use his wingspan and he has length. So I feel he’s young and people haven’t really seen him, but I feel he’s one of the better tackles in the National Football League.”