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Brown is living the high life in his spare timeCredit: Instagram @pharaohbrown<\/p>\n
The veteran tight end has been in the NFL<\/a> since 2017 — most recently with the Arizona Cardinals —\u00a0and has set his sights on a career in aviation when he hangs up the cleats.<\/p>\n Brown grew up near the airport in Cleveland, Ohio, and having been told his dreams were out of reach as a child, decided to prove the doubters wrong after his NFL career took off.<\/p>\n “Say that you’re dreamed about something, but somebody says something, then you internalize it like, ‘Man. So, I guess I can’t do that, right?’ My imagination was kind of killed in that aspect,” he explained.<\/p>\n “So, once I got older, and I got settled in the league, I was, like, ‘What do I want to do outside of football?’ I have done a bunch of things, and it just came to me. I think I was praying and meditating one day, and I was just like, ‘I’m going to be a pilot.’<\/p>\n MORE ON NFL<\/p>\n “I literally just woke up and went and got in the plane, went and signed up for school.”<\/p>\n The journey to a pilot’s licence is no walk in the park, for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n You have to put in the work, which is no issue for a pro athlete, and go through a series of check flights.<\/p>\n The tests book up months in advance and on Super Bowl<\/a> Sunday, Brown was offered a chance to jump in the cockpit at the last minute.<\/p>\n “I’m like, ‘It’s Super Bowl Sunday. This has to be a sign from God, like. I gotta go. I gotta do it.'”<\/p>\n He continued: “We coming in [to land]. And the instructor was kind of a wide guy, and like, you know, you can imagine, me and a wide guy, it’s tight. So, my elbow room, I’m not used to it and I’m trying to get to all my controls.<\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n The tight end is hoping for a career in aviation one dayCredit: Instagram @pharaohbrown 4<\/p>\n Brown isn’t ready to hang up the cleats just yetCredit: Getty<\/p>\n “So we coming in to land. And literally — I’m probably like 400 feet above the ground– and the plane just goes wooof [indicates a dropping motion].”<\/p>\n Brown pulled out of the landing — sending his instructor flying out of his seat in the process.<\/p>\n He added: “In my mind, I’m like, ‘We’re about to die.’ My training kicked in, but I’ve never been through this before, and I’m just like, ‘Brother, this is over. Like, this is how I’m going out.'”<\/p>\n Brown managed to get himself and his impressed instructor safely back on the ground to pass his test.<\/p>\n He says running out for the likes of the Cleveland Browns<\/a>, New England Patriots<\/a>, and Seattle Seahawks<\/a> is nothing compared to the high-stakes world pilots occupy.<\/p>\n “My whole life we always say these are high pressure environments, but the football environment is is social pressure, but it’s not pressure like when you get into a plane,” the tight end added. “The pressure is dying. One wrong control, one wrong move, one mess up. We’re talking about life loss.<\/p>\n NFL Stadium Status<\/p>\n “When you step on a football field, yes, might be high pressure, but that’s just pressure that we putting on ourselves. …<\/p>\n “I’ve never really been scared in my life until I like gone to a plane, and I’m in a plane as an inexperienced pilot. I’m like, ‘What am I doing? Like, I don’t know if I can do this.’ <\/p>\n “Now you’ve got real pressure because you can kill yourself or kill somebody.”<\/p>\n Brown was two-time First Team All-Pac-12 during his time in Oregon, where he graduated with a degree in advertising.<\/p>\n He has since taken a Masters in finance at the Kelley School of Business and has one eye on a commercial licence, meaning he can could charge for flying people around.<\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n Brown and ex-teammate Brandin Cooks bonded over their love of flyingCredit: Getty<\/p>\n Having followed fellow tight end Jimmy Graham — an accomplished aerobatic pilot — and former Houston Texans<\/a> teammate Brandin Cooks into the air, he know wants to clear a path for the next generation.<\/p>\n “If I can do it, where I came from, the stuff that I’ve been through, anybody can,” Brown told talkSPORT. “Anybody can really do it. <\/p>\n “The aviation space has been such a cool space. I always just thought of flight attendants and pilots, but there’s so many different avenues and jobs in an environment that’s always changing.<\/p>\n “A lot of people don’t like desk jobs anymore. A lot of people want to be on the move and you get on autopilot when you’re doing the exact same thing, I know I do.<\/p>\n “Aviation offers a lot of stuff in that space, even just traveling, I mean, if I’m young and I can make six figures in top of traveling the world, sign me up. …<\/p>\n “It’s just been like a this this flowing thing. And just like a little passion of mine for my second career, whenever I decide to be done with football.”<\/p>\n Read More on talkSPORT<\/p>\n Many players hit the coach when their careers are up, Brown has set his sights a little higher.<\/p>\n Stay up to date with the latest from the NFL across all platforms – follow our dedicated talkSPORT USA Facebook page<\/a> and subscribe to our talkSPORT USA YouTube channel <\/a>for news, exclusive interviews and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people spend Super Bowl Sunday morning making sure the fridge is fully stocked. Pharaoh Brown was plummeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[265,390,9266,85,38025,7,253,13088,116911,6,996,16254,116912,116913,261,505,105304],"class_list":{"0":"post-856553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-brandin-cooks","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-flying","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-houston-texans","15":"tag-jimmy-graham","16":"tag-new-englasnd-patriots","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-ohio","19":"tag-pharaoh-brown","20":"tag-pilots","21":"tag-pilots-licence","22":"tag-seattle-seahawks","23":"tag-super-bowl","24":"tag-super-bowl-sunday"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116356734713243315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pharoah-brown-google-1-1.webp.jpeg\")
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