It’s mid-May at the Denver Broncos’ Dove Valley training complex, a gray and damp afternoon that has become all too familiar during the wettest month in recent memory. Just days removed from a snowstorm that left many thinking football season had come early, there’s still a chill in the air. Brandon Marshall is dressed accordingly: Black beanie, black and white hoodie, black sweats, and a pair of shiny white and black Air Jordan 11s.
Those shoes are a particularly nice sight to see. Not just because they’re some of the sweetest retro kicks around, but Marshall strolling the grounds in high tops means he’s not limping around in a walking boot. He began enjoying left-footed shoes again only a week prior, when he shed the boot that came after surgery in March to repair a Lisfranc injury (when bones in the arch of the foot break, or ligaments that support the arch tear). It cost him the final two regular season games of 2014, but he was cleared for the Broncos’ playoff matchup against Indianapolis. The pain didn’t dissipate in the offseason, though, so Marshall underwent surgery, forcing him to miss all the OTAs and minicamps prior to training camp.
Yet the 25-year-old linebacker looks comfortable on this day. He projects confidence – with good reason. Despite missing that pair of games, Marshall was the leading tackler (113 total) on the NFL’s third-ranked defense in yards allowed. Including the playoffs, he started 14 of 15 games after making just nine appearances his first two seasons in the league. And he’s slated to be a starting inside linebacker on a squad that, yet again, harbors Super Bowl aspirations. It’s also a team that opted not to draft for depth at his position. The Broncos are betting big on Marshall and fellow inside ‘backer Danny Trevathan, who led the Broncos in tackles in 2013 but played just three games last year due to various leg injuries.
Add Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware at outside linebacker in the team’s new 3-4 defensive alignment and this quartet could form one of the most formidable linebacking corps in the NFL. Miller and Ware are perennial Pro Bowlers; Trevathan and Marshall have showed promise. In December, former Broncos defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio had this to say about Marshall’s breakout season: “He’s had a Pro Bowl kind of year. What happens is you typically wake people up in the first year and the next year they vote for you.”
Marshall woke up a lot of folks in 2014. He entered training camp just hoping to make the 53-man roster after seeing only practice squad and special teams work in 2013. But when Trevathan went down with his initial injury, Marshall stepped right in. By the end of camp he sported a green dot on the back of his helmet, designating the helmet containing the radio that communicates with coaches so he could call plays for teammates. That responsibility falls on someone coaches can trust, obviously, but also a guy who’s going to be on the field a vast majority of the time. Trust from coaches and significant playing time was new to Marshall.
But the more games he started and the more plays he made, the trust proved well founded and the playing time deserved. His comfort level grew. His confidence grew. His name recognition grew.
Then again, name recognition hasn’t been a problem for Brandon Marshall. It’s associating the name with the right face that has caused issues.
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Brandon Marshall the linebacker learned about Brandon Marshall the receiver when the latter became a fourth-round Denver draft pick in 2006. Growing up in Las Vegas, the linebacker had always been a Broncos fan. As he watched this wideout from Central Florida with the same name catch passes from Jake Plummer and Jay Cutler, he was earning first-team all-conference and second-team all-state honors as a senior at Cimarron-Memorial High School.
The younger Marshall ventured up north to the University of Nevada in Reno and redshirted in 2007, while the elder Marshall broke out as a sophomore in Denver. With Cutler at the helm, Marshall quickly became his favorite target, collecting 1,325 yards and seven touchdowns on 102 catches. He nearly matched that output the next season (104 catches, 1,265 yards, six touchdowns), thus earning his first Pro Bowl selection – in just the fashion Del Rio referenced: Wake ‘em up one year, get voted in the next.
By the time Marshall the linebacker made his way into the league – a fifth-round pick by Jacksonville in 2012 – Marshall the wideout had earned two more Pro Bowl berths and was about to join his third team, hooking back up with Cutler in Chicago, where they quickly continued the connection they established in Denver. One of their best games that season was a Week 5 win in Jacksonville, as Cutler posted 292 yards and two touchdowns, with 144 yards and one score going to Marshall.
After the game, Brandon Marshall the linebacker actually met Brandon Marshall the wide receiver. Briefly.
“Before the game was over he kind of pointed to me and went like this (tugged his shirt) so we could talk or swap jerseys,” says the younger Marshall. “We never ended up swapping jerseys because after I talked to him after the game, he was bombarded by reporters and a bunch of people. So we could never really swap jerseys, we could never really talk. But I met him once.”
Should they meet again, they’ll have to carve out some time alone, because Marshall the linebacker – sometimes referred to as the “less famous Brandon Marshall” – has some stories to tell.
The craziest mistaken identity tale took place over Memorial Day Weekend 2014 in Las Vegas, the linebacker’s hometown, where he was invited to host a party at a club. He was promised his own section and VIP service.
“I go in the building and they seat me and everything,” he says. “And I hear someone whisper behind me. They’re like, ‘That’s not him. That’s not him.’ So I’m like, ‘Hold on, what’s going on?’ Then some lady comes to the table and she was like, ‘There seems to be a mix-up. People are saying you’re not him.’
“I had to Google myself, I had to pull out my NFL card. Somebody was like, ‘Get him out of here, that ain’t him.’ And I’m like, ‘Look man, y’all called me. You hit my phone so you’re the one that made the mistake.’ So after that I was done. I was mad.”
Mostly, Marshall has fun with the confusion. He had a ball during the Bears’ Monday night game against the Jets this past September. Marshall the receiver injured his ankle and left the game in the second quarter. Though he returned in the second half, he snagged just one catch for six yards on the night. So some people felt prompted to tweet at Marshall. Only many didn’t send their message to the right one.
“He got hurt and it was all about the fantasy points,” says Marshall the Bronco. “People were mad, [saying things on Twitter like] ‘I need my points man, get back on the field. You’re soft. You’re this, you’re that.’ That’s when I had the most fun with it and I was eating it up because I got at least 800 mentions that night alone, maybe 1,000 that night. And before I even started responding I already had like 100 because people were really adamant about their fantasy points.”
Never mind that Marshall the linebacker’s Twitter handle was (and still is) @BMarshh54, the numbers representing the digits on his Broncos jersey. His profile at the time also featured a picture of him in said Broncos jersey, and his bio mentioned Broncos country. Soon thereafter, Marshall the Bronco changed his photo to one of his face next to some text: Not Bears Brandon Marshall.
Nonetheless, things got crazy again in March when trade rumors ran rampant around the elder Marshall. One Twitter user asked @BMarshh54 on March 5, “can you plz comfirm u haven’t parted from chi and help stop this false media,” to which Denver’s Marshall responded, “I can confirm that I’ve never even been to chi.”
Twenty-five minutes later the LB played mischievous: “I wish the Bears would try and trade me.. We gon have problems,” followed by an angry face emoticon. That message got more than 4,100 retweets and was favorited more than 3,200 times. Without digging through each and every one of Marshall’s 14,000-plus tweets, that might be the most popular tweet he’s ever sent out. Twenty-four minutes following that, Marshall wrote, “Bruh I currently have 800 unread mentions lol.”
A trade to the Jets became official the next morning, and the mix-up madness soon spread from Twitter. On The Players’ Tribune website was a story titled, “Wide receiver Brandon Marshall has reportedly been traded to the New York Jets;” the accompanying image was of the Broncos’ Marshall, No. 54 jersey and all. Later, Fox Sports 1 displayed a graphic reading, “Marshall informed he’s being traded to Jets,” which came next to a headshot of the Broncos’ Marshall. And ESPN displayed a tweet it thought was from the Brandon Marshall being traded, but there was that @BMarshh54 handle again. It read, “So It wasn’t enough to have bears fans always blowing up my Twitter. Now I have Jets fans blowing it up.. This is a never ending journey lol.”
In a way, the hubbub ruined some other big news that day: The Broncos offered their Marshall a one-year, exclusive rights free agent contract. When he signed it a week later, it bumped his pay up to $585,000 from $495,000. But he’ll be a restricted free agent following this season, at which point he could cash in on a big payday. It’ll come if he duplicates his production from 2014, and even more so if he follows the other Brandon Marshall’s method of getting selected to the Pro Bowl: Wake ‘em up one year, get voted in the next.
The cases of mistaken identity might just play to Marshall the linebacker’s favor. Fan ballots account for a third of the Pro Bowl votes, so he could get few extra nods from unaware voters. Regardless, the mix-ups add a little extra incentive for Denver’s Marshall to make a name for himself.
“I try not to think about it too much,” he says. “I just try to play ball. I think about it a little bit because obviously I want to be mentioned in that elite company, but my focus is not to be mentioned over him. But I definitely want to be mentioned in that elite company.”
He’ll get his chance in 2015. With both Marshall and Trevathan recovering from respective surgeries, many gurus saw inside linebacker as one of the Broncos’ biggest draft needs. General Manager John Elway kept the door open, saying before the draft, “We really feel good that we have some good young linebackers. We feel good about that, but you never have enough of those either. If there is a good one available, we’ll take them.” Marshall figured the team would spend at least a third- or fourth-round pick on someone to compete with him.
As it turned out, Denver used its first-round pick on a linebacker, but it was outside ‘backer Shane Ray, who’s much more in the mold of a pass rusher like Miller or Ware. Every other defensive player the team took was a lineman or defensive back.
So among the first questions asked to new head coach Gary Kubiak after the draft was if the team is sure Marshall and Trevathan will be back healthy.
“Yeah we’re very confident that they’ll be back,” the coach said. “And actually Danny did a little bit this week, some of our actual jog-through type stuff and Marshall will be back too, so we’ll be fine.”
“Usually when your starters are hurt, they’re going to draft somebody,” Marshall says. “So that’s a testament to how I did last year. I guess they only see me on the rise, and they see Danny on the rise. It’s a blessing because in a different organization on a different team, that might not have happened. They might have took somebody first, second round. So I think it’s a blessing.”
***
Marshall knows well what it’s like to not feel valued in an organization. That about sums up his time in Jacksonville. After the Jaguars selected him with the 142nd pick in 2012 and signed him to a four-year, $2.3 million contract, he saw the field early that season with the special teams. But toward the end of October, playing time vanished. The Jags released him Oct. 27, only to re-sign him three days later, only to cut him again two days later, only to sign him again and place him on the practice squad four days later. He saw action in Jacksonville’s final game of 2012, leaving him with a shred of hope for the upcoming training camp.
Yet, Marshall wouldn’t get on the field in a regular season game again until the final week of 2013 – with the Broncos. Jacksonville’s coaches had stopped talking to him, a sign they weren’t too interested in keeping him around, and sure enough, the Jags cut Marshall for a third time at the conclusion of training camp. For some reason they still wanted him on their scout team, but this time Marshall also had interest from Denver and Oakland, for their practice squads.
Suddenly, Marshall had some options: He could return to the team that drafted him, but also neglected him; he could play closer to home in Oakland, but that also meant playing for the Raiders; or he could join the team of which he’d always been a fan, and a favorite to reach the Super Bowl. By the end of the season, he was suiting up in the Super Bowl.
Marshall impressed as soon as he arrived at Dove Valley, earning defensive scout team player of the week honors that very first week. He’d go on to win the accolade nearly a dozen more times, resulting in his promotion to the active roster for the season finale and playoffs.
How does a guy go from getting cut three times by one of the worst teams in the NFL to finding a spot on the eventual AFC champions? Faith in God and faith in himself.
“I believed that it would all work out and I believed that this is my calling,” Marshall says. “I think a lot of it is belief. A lot of people, they don’t believe. I’ve always believed, but I’ve matched my work ethic with that belief.”
“He’s a hard worker, man. He’s enthusiastic, he’s a guy that came from the bottom and he’s working his way up. You can’t do nothing but respect somebody like that,” Trevathan says, adding, “He’s always been Brandon Marshall, but he’s starting to make his own name now.”
And so, Brandon Marshall the linebacker enters the 2015 season with respect and trust, all he ever needed to thrive in the NFL. He goes into training camp not with the mindset that he’s made it, but that he’s still fighting for a roster spot. He feels he still has a lot to prove, yet he could very well be the signal caller for what Trevathan says is going to be “the best linebacker corps in the NFL.” Marshall yearns to be known as an elite linebacker, a Pro Bowler, and he hopes to earn a multi-year contract that pays on that level.
If he does, the questions he gets when he shows his ID – “Are you the receiver?” – will stop. People will see the name and know the face.
That wideout in New York (or wherever he gets traded next) will be “the other Brandon Marshall.”
This story appeared in the July issue of Mile High Sports Magazine.