Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
“It still doesn’t feel real” - Blue Raider Brewer recounts Super Bowl Season with Rams
2/20/2022 5:38:00 PM | Football
The former All-C-USA offensive lineman was on the practice squad for Los Angeles
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — To say the last week has been a whirlwind for Chandler Brewer would be an understatement.
Last week on Sunday afternoon, the former All-C-USA offensive lineman as a Blue Raider was standing on the sidelines of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., helping his team, the Los Angeles Rams, win Super Bowl LVI over the Cincinnati Bengals as a member of the practice squad.
On Tuesday, he signed a futures contract with the Rams to return next season. Wednesday? The Super Bowl victory parade. By Saturday, Brewer and his wife, Bailey, were traveling back to Alabama to visit his parents, after visiting some of Bailey's family in Arizona. By the time this writer caught up with Brewers, the pair were somewhere in New Mexico on I-10, headed eastbound.
"It's crazy, because it still doesn't feel real that we won the Super Bowl," Brewer said. "You work your whole life, you do everything you can to get there. And then it's actually done. The biggest thing is that the season is done, it's over with, there's no more, that's it."
Brewer was first picked up by the Los Angeles Rams following the 2019 NFL Draft, where Brewer went undrafted after earning first team All-Conference honors as a senior. He would just miss making the 53-man roster his rookie season, but was immediately signed to the Rams' practice squad, where he was eventually activated to the 53-man roster towards the end of the 2019 season for seven games.
Brewer, who battled non-Hodgkin lymphoma his senior season in Murfreesboro, opted out of the 2020 season due to his increased health risk as so much about COVID-19 remained unknown. The NFL being able to help him out also made Brewer's decision easier. But as we knew more, and got more options to help with COVID-19, Brewer opted back in for 2021, where it was quickly apparent that the Rams had a group that could make some noise.
"OTAs everybody was kind of trying to figure each other out," Brewer said. "You could really tell when we started training camp, once we got into Week 2, Week 3, you could really tell it was going to be something special."
Brewer once again was cut and signed to the practice squad just before Week 1 of the regular season, where, in his words, he got the opportunity to "do the same exact thing every other player does except play on Sunday." He'd sit in on meetings every week with veterans Andrew Whitworth and Rob Havenstein, practice with his position group every day, and try to help on the sidelines during game day anyway he could, from looking for details to scout for his teammates to just absorbing the experience with the hope it'll help him down the line.
Of course, when you do everything BUT play on Sundays, you get to know the details others might now, like how the Rams were permitted to use their home locker room on Super Bowl Sunday, albeit with some areas blocked off, things like hot tubs the Bengals didn't have in their locker room, to make things fair. In fact, Brewer said the whole Super Bowl week often felt like a normal home game week for the Rams, given they practiced in their own facility and didn't have to embark for the team hotel until Saturday.
Brewer will remember a lot of the moments he felt on the sideline this playoff run, from Matt Gay's walk off field goal to get past Tampa Bay in the Divisional round, to the last drive the Rams' put together on SoFi's turf, where Cooper Kupp beat Eli Apple to put the Rams up for good.
But there will be time for that sort of reminiscing later, after he battles once again in 2022 for a 53-man roster spot thanks to the futures contract he signed just after the Super Bowl was over. For this week, it was apparent that the Super Bowl parade still sticks out in his mind.
"You've got to watch all these parades, whether it's the World Series or whatever, and you just think, 'man, how fun that would be?'" Brewer said. "And let me tell you, it was better than anything that I've seen on TV. It was crazy. Champagne blowing everywhere, confetti, fans everywhere. It was unbelievable."
Like most NFL players, Brewer has a different home base for the offseason than where his team plays, and Chandler and Bailey (nee Mason, for all your Blue Raider volleyball fans) have Murfreesboro to call home. With Bailey, who works remotely most of the year, having her office in Nashville, and Chandler training up there during the offseason, putting down roots in Murfreesboro is a no brainer.
"Going to school at MTSU in Murfreesboro, I had the absolute best college experience I think I could ever get anywhere," Brewer said. "I love the people, love the area, it's growing like crazy."
For now, even with the season being over, Brewer will look to get back to work after visiting family over the next couple of weeks. All with one goal in mind.
"That means a lot for them to still want me to be there and try to help in any way I can," Brewer said. "Obviously the goal is to make the roster and contribute on Sundays. So that's the goal that I have going into the offseason."
Last week on Sunday afternoon, the former All-C-USA offensive lineman as a Blue Raider was standing on the sidelines of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., helping his team, the Los Angeles Rams, win Super Bowl LVI over the Cincinnati Bengals as a member of the practice squad.
On Tuesday, he signed a futures contract with the Rams to return next season. Wednesday? The Super Bowl victory parade. By Saturday, Brewer and his wife, Bailey, were traveling back to Alabama to visit his parents, after visiting some of Bailey's family in Arizona. By the time this writer caught up with Brewers, the pair were somewhere in New Mexico on I-10, headed eastbound.
"It's crazy, because it still doesn't feel real that we won the Super Bowl," Brewer said. "You work your whole life, you do everything you can to get there. And then it's actually done. The biggest thing is that the season is done, it's over with, there's no more, that's it."
Brewer was first picked up by the Los Angeles Rams following the 2019 NFL Draft, where Brewer went undrafted after earning first team All-Conference honors as a senior. He would just miss making the 53-man roster his rookie season, but was immediately signed to the Rams' practice squad, where he was eventually activated to the 53-man roster towards the end of the 2019 season for seven games.
Brewer, who battled non-Hodgkin lymphoma his senior season in Murfreesboro, opted out of the 2020 season due to his increased health risk as so much about COVID-19 remained unknown. The NFL being able to help him out also made Brewer's decision easier. But as we knew more, and got more options to help with COVID-19, Brewer opted back in for 2021, where it was quickly apparent that the Rams had a group that could make some noise.
"OTAs everybody was kind of trying to figure each other out," Brewer said. "You could really tell when we started training camp, once we got into Week 2, Week 3, you could really tell it was going to be something special."
Brewer once again was cut and signed to the practice squad just before Week 1 of the regular season, where, in his words, he got the opportunity to "do the same exact thing every other player does except play on Sunday." He'd sit in on meetings every week with veterans Andrew Whitworth and Rob Havenstein, practice with his position group every day, and try to help on the sidelines during game day anyway he could, from looking for details to scout for his teammates to just absorbing the experience with the hope it'll help him down the line.
Of course, when you do everything BUT play on Sundays, you get to know the details others might now, like how the Rams were permitted to use their home locker room on Super Bowl Sunday, albeit with some areas blocked off, things like hot tubs the Bengals didn't have in their locker room, to make things fair. In fact, Brewer said the whole Super Bowl week often felt like a normal home game week for the Rams, given they practiced in their own facility and didn't have to embark for the team hotel until Saturday.
Brewer will remember a lot of the moments he felt on the sideline this playoff run, from Matt Gay's walk off field goal to get past Tampa Bay in the Divisional round, to the last drive the Rams' put together on SoFi's turf, where Cooper Kupp beat Eli Apple to put the Rams up for good.
But there will be time for that sort of reminiscing later, after he battles once again in 2022 for a 53-man roster spot thanks to the futures contract he signed just after the Super Bowl was over. For this week, it was apparent that the Super Bowl parade still sticks out in his mind.
"You've got to watch all these parades, whether it's the World Series or whatever, and you just think, 'man, how fun that would be?'" Brewer said. "And let me tell you, it was better than anything that I've seen on TV. It was crazy. Champagne blowing everywhere, confetti, fans everywhere. It was unbelievable."
Like most NFL players, Brewer has a different home base for the offseason than where his team plays, and Chandler and Bailey (nee Mason, for all your Blue Raider volleyball fans) have Murfreesboro to call home. With Bailey, who works remotely most of the year, having her office in Nashville, and Chandler training up there during the offseason, putting down roots in Murfreesboro is a no brainer.
"Going to school at MTSU in Murfreesboro, I had the absolute best college experience I think I could ever get anywhere," Brewer said. "I love the people, love the area, it's growing like crazy."
For now, even with the season being over, Brewer will look to get back to work after visiting family over the next couple of weeks. All with one goal in mind.
"That means a lot for them to still want me to be there and try to help in any way I can," Brewer said. "Obviously the goal is to make the roster and contribute on Sundays. So that's the goal that I have going into the offseason."
A Blue Raider gets a Super Bowl ring for the third year in a row!
— Middle Tennessee FB (@MT_FB) February 14, 2022
Congrats to Chandler Brewer's @RamsNFL! 👏#MiddleMade | #EATT pic.twitter.com/Bz61FYylSb
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