Brotherly love and competition highlight the first meeting between Sidney and Chase Brown in the NFL

From the start of his tenure as Illinois head coach in 2021, Bret Bielema preached to his players that practice habits became game day realities. It was this rule that prohibited Sidney and Chase Brown from working out against each other in live recruiting sessions during the final two years of their college careers.

In the first intramural scrimmage of Belem’s inaugural fall camp, Chase, a running back, was tasked with blocking his twin brother, Sidney, a safety, who was sent on a blitz. The Twins extended the game with a pushing match. The next thing Bielema knew, a play or two later, there were a bunch of players on the field with Sidney and Chase crashing down the middle.

Bielema kicked the Browns out of practice that day. But that didn’t stop them from competing in everything else, on and off the field, for the rest of their time at Illinois. Who could have played more in their respective roles? Who could lift more in the gym?

“Having known them for a long time, there is so much unconditional love between them,” Bielema told The Inquirer. “But they will not yield to others.”

That makes Sunday’s matchup between the Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals all the more interesting for Bielem. For the first time in their 24-year lives, Sidney and Chase will play against each other in game action. The odds of the two facing off on the field are slim, but not impossible: Chase, the Bengals’ fifth-round pick in 2023, has been the starting receiver in the past two games, while Sidney, the Eagles’ third-rounder rounder that year, he would contribute on special teams in just his second game since tearing his ACL in January.

Still, the Brown twins don’t need to go directly to each other to show off their competitive spirit. Its essence traces the paths they took to reach this stage in their careers.

“I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for the competition between us,” Sidney said.

Setting standards in “hard work”

Todd Creneti, head coach at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Bradenton, Fla., didn’t realize the two athletes could compete during the stretch until he saw Sidney and Chase during their first practice.

Each class began with a dynamic warm-up. The twins, who transferred from London, Ont., for their junior year at St. Stephen’s School, stared each other down as they tried to outdo each other in drills. With each lunge it seemed as if they were trying to calculate the depth of the other twin’s back knee. At each jump, they watched whose legs turned over faster.

The year before Sidney and Chase arrived, St. Stephens finished the 2015 season 9-2 and won the division championship. According to Creneti, the group already had tremendous talent, but the Browns set a new standard for work ethic.

“Our kids thought they knew what hard work looked like,” Creneti said. “But Sid and Chase showed up and practiced like their lives depended on it.”

In Sydney’s eyes, the only way out was to go all out. The boys were raised by their mother, Rachel, who suffered from immune thrombocytopenia, a blood disorder in which the immune system attacks platelets. Unable to work, Rachel, the twins and their younger sister Maya bounced between living in shelters and their mother Nancy’s home. Sidney and Chase showed promise playing high school football in Canada, but the people they trained with told them that if they wanted to play high school football in the United States, they needed to play high school there as well.

“When we moved to Florida, we realized that this was an opportunity that our family had sacrificed for, and we knew that this was really our one chance to get out,” Sydney said.

Sydney and Chase appeared to be at ease on the football field, helping St. Stephen’s win all of their games in the two seasons they played in the suit. According to Creneti, there were fewer of them in the class.

But at St. Stephen’s, the cool kids were also smart, and the Browns were eager to fit in. With the help of their parents, Phil and Karen Yates, Sydney and Chase developed a passion for math and science. Phil, a former naval pilot with a knack for math and physics, spent many nights a week at the dinner table working with the boys.

“We had the right mindset,” Chase said. “We knew what we wanted to achieve. And we just followed that dream.”

On the verge of a split

This sense of competition was also reflected in the college admissions process. Because St. Stephen’s was a smaller school, Creneti said few programs believed the Brown brothers were as talented as the film showed.

Sidney didn’t have a Division I offer at the Power Five level until Illinois came two days before signing day. Chase attracted more interest around the country and eventually transferred to Western Michigan, which had a football program and aviation school. At first, he wanted to follow in Phil’s footsteps and become a pilot.

“It was hard because we both really relied on each other,” Sydney said. “Even when we left Canada, we had each other. It was really a moment where we both kind of struggled with it.”

Their separation did not last long. Chase transferred to Illinois after his freshman season at Western Michigan. When Bielema and his coaching staff arrived two years later, both brothers thrived: “When preparation meets opportunity, good things happen,” Bielema explained.

Sidney started all 24 regular-season games, finishing with a team-high 81 tackles in 2021 and a Big Ten-high six interceptions in 2022. Chase ranked fourth in the nation in rushing yards in 2022 (1,643), becoming a Doak Walker Award finalist as one of the top three running backs in college football.

Still, the gap year gave the twins time to grow as individuals, preparing them for a possible separation from the NFL. Bielema tried to push them to stay together. He was on the coaching staff of the New England Patriots when twins Devin and Jason McCourty were on the team, giving him the opportunity to see firsthand the “power of twins working together” at the professional level. So when Bielema spoke to teams including the Eagles and Seattle Seahawks about Sidney and Chase, he touted the potential benefit of drafting them both.

“Do you want to talk about the dream?” Sydney reasoned. “That would be crazy.”

But Sidney also said he knew their breakup was inevitable. Regardless, the draft was another opportunity for the twins to go against each other. Chase always liked to tell people that he was the firstborn of the two, but Creneti warned him that his slight age advantage wouldn’t matter in their sibling rivalry if the team picked Sydney first.

His omen came true. The moment Sidney got the call from the Eagles on the second day of the draft, he had a feeling he said he would like to relive over and over again. At the same time, it was a moment he couldn’t fully enjoy with friends and family in Ontario because of the turmoil surrounding Chase’s future.

“I really didn’t feel like I was drafted,” Sidney said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready to celebrate this moment with my family and my people, but I just didn’t. It wouldn’t be bad without my brother because I wouldn’t be here without him.”

The next 24 hours were hectic. Creneti called Chase “depressed.” On Day 3, even though Chase didn’t want people around, Sidney insisted on having a gathering so his brother could have his moment too. As soon as tears appeared in the eyes of Chase, when he answered the call of the Bengals, Sydney wrapped his arms around him on the sofa in celebration

“You just see in that moment, the two of them went through their whole lives,” Creneti said. “And they were always there to support each other and take care of each other and answer to each other.

“And in this moment, they’re both celebrating a dream come true that I’m sure a lot more people told them would never happen.”

Remote support

The morning after the draft, the Brown twins and Creneti hosted breakfast at a hotel in London, Ontario. Sitting at a table tucked away in the corner of the restaurant, Creneti watched the usually serious, hypercompetitive brothers relax after the biggest setback of their football careers.

“Even though the big event was coming up and they still had to prove themselves and they were both like, ‘I haven’t done anything yet.’ I haven’t done anything yet, they’ve gotten to this point,” Creneti said. “And to see them lighthearted and laughing, knowing everything they’ve been through to get to this point, it touches your soul.”

For Sydney, the meal marked a lull before the whirlwind of an NFL schedule that will put the Brown twins on their own path for the first time since their freshman years in college. But even 600 miles of separation didn’t stop them from finding ways to compete with each other.

They make a friendly bet about playing the “PGA Tour” game for Xbox (Sydney said he’d win most of their virtual contests, but he assumed Chase wouldn’t agree). Just like in college, the twins try to outdo each other on game day, and they are quick to let the other brother know when they are playing.

“We’ve always played offense and defense,” Chase said. “And it’s not like we played the same position where you can statistically compare everything we do. But the main thing we do is just, if he plays, I try to play. If I play, he tries to play.”

But there have been no game days for Sidney for the past nine months as he rehabs from ACL surgery before making his season debut last week against the Cleveland Browns. When Sidney wasn’t playing football, he called Chase his “psycho.” He was always there to listen to Sydney when he was dealing with the turmoil of the first long-term injury of his football career.

This week the number of calls is reduced to a minimum. While the twins won’t stop talking as they prepare for Sunday’s game at Cincinnati, they agreed not to talk about football, bucking their typical tendency to discuss their weekly opponents and key players.

Their feelings about the game are mixed. Sidney said “it’s a dream” they’ve been chasing since childhood. At the same time, his competitive side came out when he admitted that he is in a completely different phase of his season than Chase as an offensive player.

“I still go back,” Sydney said. “I have a second game. So I’m still trying to get my role back and be in a position to say it’s brother against brother. Because right now it’s more like he’s going to play his big starting role on offense and I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do, especially on special teams and stuff.”

Should the twins face off on the field, Sydney predicts a healthy exchange of trash after the game. Otherwise, their first face-to-face meeting of the afternoon may not come until after the final whistle. Sidney and Chase will then meet at midfield to exchange jerseys, a symbol of the mutual support it took to get to this point.

“They’re going to smile at that picture,” Creneti said. “But one of them will be pissed off.”

The Eagles play the Cincinnati Bengals in week eight. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and E.J. Smith as they break down the hottest storylines surrounding the team at Gameday Centrallive from Paycor Stadium.