NFL star turned pilot spent Super Bowl Sunday in terrifying aborted landing: ‘We’re about to die’

Most people spend Super Bowl Sunday morning making sure the fridge is fully stocked.

Pharaoh Brown was plummeting toward the ground fearing for his life.

Instagram @pharaohbrown

The veteran tight end has been in the NFL since 2017 — most recently with the Arizona Cardinals — and has set his sights on a career in aviation when he hangs up the cleats.

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.

“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.

“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.’

“I literally just woke up and went and got in the plane, went and signed up for school.”

The journey to a pilot’s licence is no walk in the park, for obvious reasons.

You have to put in the work, which is no issue for a pro athlete, and go through a series of check flights.

The tests book up months in advance and on Super Bowl Sunday, Brown was offered a chance to jump in the cockpit at the last minute.

“I’m like, ‘It’s Super Bowl Sunday. This has to be a sign from God, like. I gotta go. I gotta do it.'”

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.

Instagram @pharaohbrown

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“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].”

Brown pulled out of the landing — sending his instructor flying out of his seat in the process.

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.'”

Brown managed to get himself and his impressed instructor safely back on the ground to pass his test.

He says running out for the likes of the Cleveland Browns, New England Patriots, and Seattle Seahawks is nothing compared to the high-stakes world pilots occupy.

“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.

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“When you step on a football field, yes, might be high pressure, but that’s just pressure that we putting on ourselves. …

“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.’

“Now you’ve got real pressure because you can kill yourself or kill somebody.”

Brown was two-time First Team All-Pac-12 during his time in Oregon, where he graduated with a degree in advertising.

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.

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Having followed fellow tight end Jimmy Graham — an accomplished aerobatic pilot — and former Houston Texans teammate Brandin Cooks into the air, he know wants to clear a path for the next generation.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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. …

“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.”

Many players hit the coach when their careers are up, Brown has set his sights a little higher.

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