BroBible
Orlando Brown Jr. benefited from being the son of the namesake who spent nine seasons in the NFL before following in his father’s footsteps. However, his dad needed some help to turn his son into the player he became and apparently turned to The Waterboy to get him to take his game to the next level.
There have been close to 150 NFL players who’ve had at least one son who ended up playing in the league.
That includes Orlando Brown, the offensive tackle who signed with the Browns as an undrafted free agent following his time at South Carolina State to kick off a career where he spent nine seasons between Cleveland and Baltimore (it spanned 12 years, as he spent three of them sidelined by the eye injury he suffered after he was hit by a penalty flag thrown by a referee during a game in 1999).
Brown was just 40 years old when he passed away in 2011 due to complications with diabetes, and he sadly never got to see his son, Orlando Brown Jr., play in an NFL game. However, he played an instrumental role in his development while getting a little bit of help from a fairly unlikely source.
The elder Brown was no stranger to the risks that come with playing football, and he initially refused to let his son play until he caved when Orlando was in eighth grade.
The middle schooler had spent his formative years as a student of football, but he quickly discovered there was a learning curve when it came to deploying that knowledge on the field.
During a recent sit-down with Fox 19, Brown said his dad refused to stay for the entirety of his first three games and got some tough love when he asked him why he kept leaving early, recalling he told him, “I can’t stand watching you play. It’s soft, man.”
“(My dad) puts on The Waterboy. Bobby Boucher snaps. He’s like, that’s how I need you to think.”
An incredible story from Orlando Brown Jr. on how he went from “soft” to a real football player. #Bengals @FOX19 #BengalsNow @ZEUS__57
(H/T @TyDunne) pic.twitter.com/1Z5YWHr9Vz
— Jeremy Rauch (@FOX19Jeremy) October 31, 2025
He said his dad attempted to remedy that problem by showing the scene from The Waterboy where Bobby Boucher scores a game-winning touchdown after blocking what would have been a game-winning field goal by harnessing the anger generated by his coach’s water slander (if you’re not familiar with the scene in question—or simply want an excuse to rewatch it—here it is).
His dad told him to channel that energy on the gridiron, and he did exactly that during the next game he played. It turned out to be a pretty valuable lesson, as the Bengals tackle is a four-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion...
