On Monday, the Buffalo Bills announced the full-time hiring of Chris Brown as the team's official radio play-by-play voice ahead of the upcoming 2024 season.
Following health complications with former radio voice and Hall of Fame broadcaster John Murphy, Brown served as the interim for a handful of games in the 2022 season and the entirety of 2023.
Jack Kreuzer of WBFO sat down with Brown, who now has the interim tag removed, to discuss the job itself, the uncertainty that came after last season’s conclusion, and the process began to fill Murphy's seat full-time:
Jack Kreuzer: How did you deal with the season coming to an end and the uncertainty of a job search?
Chris Brown: Yeah, I mean, I knew that was inevitable, so what I tried to do was just focus on doing the best job I could while I was doing the job. And so that was my focus, and I tried to keep reminding myself not to worry about things I can't control. I'm not the decision maker in what the outcome of that's going to be, so try not to waste time worrying about it. That's easier said than done, but that was the constant thing I was trying to roll through my head
JK: With Chris Brown, Voice of the Buffalo Bills, what in your mind makes an elite play-by-play broadcaster?
CB: Well, if we're talking strictly on the radio side, it is describing the scene. You have to paint the picture quite literally with your words and do it in an effective fashion so that you can provide the listener with everything they cannot see. To me, that's number one, and then to try to do it in a concise manner, so much so that there's enough room for your color commentator to step in and provide depth to what is going on on the field and explaining why it's happening or how it's happening. So you have to be super descriptive, and you have to do it in a very finite period of time to leave room for your broadcast partner.
JK: How did that work with you and Eric Wood, not only that first game, but throughout the last year of work with him, where he was so used to John Murphy and his cadence, how long did it take for you to get into a rhythm with Eric?
CB: Yeah, I was, I was kind of surprised at how seamless the transition was. Fortunately for me, I was dropped into a situation where Eric had been doing his role for about five years, and our engineers had been doing it for umpteen number of years. You know, grizzled veterans in the business. You know, I came in with about 15 years of play-by-play experience. And so I think that experience was what we all kind of leaned on. And it was weird because I would ask Eric, like, Do you want any kind of cues from me? Like, I'm good, you're up. And he didn't really ask for any. He just kind of felt it out. And I can probably count on one hand, in those first four games that we did at the end of the 22 season, how many times we may have stepped on one another or talked over one another? It's like maybe two times I can think in four games, which for two people that are just getting thrust into a booth together, is pretty remarkable. So I was encouraged by that. And then the other part of it was coming back for the 2023 season. I was still interim, so I didn't feel it was my place to basically inject my thoughts or suggestions on Eric, because he's the permanent guy. I'm not. So, I basically just lofted it to him and said, if you have anything that you want me to do that would make it easier for you, just let me know I wasn't gonna come in and start swinging bats and saying, let's we're gonna need to do this, and I'm gonna do this for you, and you're gonna like it, like, that's that wasn't my place, based on my position at the time.
JK: Has that changed now, with the interim tag removed, are there things that you want to implement that you said you held off on a year ago?
CB: Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I had a checklist handy. I think what I'm talking about are very fine points of the broadcast. You're always trying to make it better. You don't want to rest on your laurels ever in this business. And I think there are a couple of things, but it's more about the interplay between us that I want to make sure we are airtight on. And I texted Eric after he sent me a text congratulating me. Said, Hey, I just want to huddle up real quick and just go over two or three things to see if there are ways that I can help you do your job better standing next to me. So if there are things great, we'll go over them. If they are not, off we go. And we just kind of hit the ground running, because we've now got 24 games of experience under our belts together, and so I really think that serves as a great springboard for this season.
JK: A lot of fans see you as the mouthpiece of the team, and you know, an employee of the Pegulas and of the bills, and also of Audacy. How do you balance being a Bills fan? First and also being fair and critical of the team while working for them.
CB: Yeah, I mean, you try your best to be objective. I'm not going to lie. I'm on the team side of the media fence, and that requires a certain line to walk. I don't think there's any secret about that, and I don't think I'm fooling anybody. But at the same time, I come from that other side of media where you did look at things with a critical eye, and I think having worked for the team for 18 years in a journalistic capacity, it's allowed me to know the ways in which I can be critical without slamming somebody or insulting somebody you know I'm not going to be, you know, that columnist that just slices and dices, you know, that's just, that's not who I am anyway. I don't think I would have done that, even if I stayed on the real media side of things, but I usually lean on the statistics and the players or coaches themselves. I might in an interview setting or just in a conversation, ask a difficult question about something, but I'll use their answer. What's their description of what happened? Or with statistics, I don't have to say that you know a player had a horrible game, if the statistics speak to that, everybody knows that a four-interception game is a lousy game, even if all the interceptions aren't on the quarterback necessarily. But I'll lean on that rather than saying this quarterback just didn't have it today and flat-out stunk, I'm not going to say that. I would rather lean on the statistics because the guy already feels horrible about his performance. There's no need for me to pile on. That's just, I don't know. That's just not how I operate
JK: With the third voice of the Buffalo Bills, Chris Brown; in the team's history, going back: Van Miller, John Murphy, and Chris Brown. Hearing your name in that conversation and knowing that that is to be til' the end of time that your name is officially with those two what does that? What does that do for you, mentally, and the pressure that comes with following in the footsteps of Legends? How does that get actualized in day-to-day life?
CB: It's humbling, for sure. It's an honor to be mentioned alongside those two names, definitely, and I was fortunate enough to have worked with both men van towards the end of his career because my first year on the Bills radio network was his last year calling games back in 2003 and I was fortunate enough when I was calling University at Buffalo football games I would be able to sit down with van on Sundays in the early morning, hours before a one o'clock game at the stadium because he would go to the UB football games and listen on his handheld transistor radio with an earpiece in his ear. And as a young broadcaster, I'm sitting there thinking van Miller is listening to me like this is this is wild. And, the first time he came up to me on a Sunday morning in the press box before a Bills game was the day after a UB game. And he's complimenting me up and down and telling me what a great job I did. And he's always got a joke or two. He would always have a joke or two up his sleeve. He was a super funny guy, and he was he once told me, he said, wow, Brownie, you make that team sound even better than they are, because they they had just jumped to division one from one double A, and they were not very good, as you might expect, trying to build the roster up. And so I kind of laughed with him, but he couldn't be more complimentary. And the first time he did that, I was like, Is this guy just blowing smoke up my rear end? Like, what's but subsequent conversations after that, I could tell he really kind of had an affinity for my broadcasting style. And then then the tips and little things started coming from him to in those conversations. And, I cherish and value those conversations some 20-some-odd years ago, because they were instrumental in helping me kind of fine-tune some of the things that I did. And then John Murphy, I, I worked and was a colleague of his for 20 years, and he gave me opportunities in the business as well. When he was at Channel Seven, he invited me to be a part of their weekly bills show that they had on their air there at WKB W so I was appreciative of that. And you know, even through this process where he's got more on his plate than anybody would want in trying to deal with his own personal health, he was still giving me little words of advice here and there while I was filling in for him. So I think it's easier for me because I know both men, I'm familiar with their work and what they did, and I know. That both of them, if they were here, would be saying, “Just be you. Don't try to be anybody else.”
JK: Before we let you go. I think it would be unfortunate if we didn't at least touch on the upcoming season. You mentioned in an article that came out today with the Buffalo News, your excitement for the upcoming season and all the storylines that are building. What would you say you're most excited for come September 8 in the season opener?
CB: I think we want, and I think most fans want, to know what the pecking order at the receiver position is going to look like, just because of the dramatic turnover that took place at that position. Khalil Shakir is the only man standing at the receiver position who caught a pass from Josh Allen last season, Trent Sherfield and Deonte Hardy, role players at the position are gone, Gabe Davis and Stefan Diggs, as most people know, are gone, and that's a lot of lot of targets and a giant void to fill. I think they have players that can capably do that as a group. I don't know that there's any one guy that can do what Diggs does, per se, but I think as a group, they should be able to fill that void. And I foresee a more democratic distribution of the ball in the passing game, which I think may help Josh Allen just play the play, if you will, as opposed to man, I haven't gotten a throw to digs in about a quarter here. I got to feed him the ball. That kind of alters your thinking when the play call comes into the huddle. So I'm hoping that that facilitates Josh to just play freely and play the game, I think, moreover, an overarching view of the team that I'm looking forward to the most is Can all of the new pieces on the fringes of the core of this team, which, in my estimation, is still very strong. Can the fringe pieces that have been acquired assimilate quickly? I'm not certain that can happen, because there has been more turnover than usual for the roster, but I know the player development skills of this coaching staff. If it doesn't happen in September. I'm pretty confident by November, this team with the talent they have, if they can fit all those pieces together and the coaches can develop the young players, it could actually be a more talented roster than the one they had last year, which is saying something. But I think it's possible
JK: So much hype around the new pieces and yeah, it is going to be interesting to see who takes over at receiver. Have you met Keon Coleman yet?
CB: I have not talked to him face to face. It's funny, he was here on a pre-draft visit, and I introduced myself to him, and it was very brief because there were three players coming through on pre-draft visits. So it was kind of like a receiving line at a wedding type deal, you know, where it's just like, hey, nice to meet you. You know, I'm Chris Brown. Welcome to Buffalo. Hope you enjoy your visit, and really, it wasn't much more than that. I think it is safe to say, it's funny. I just met one of his Florida State teammates, Jordan Travis, the quarterback. He was in town, a friend of a friend kind of thing. And I got a chance to talk to him for 10 minutes, and I talked to him about Keon, and I said, is he is his personality really like that all the time? And he told me unequivocally yes. He said we would go for 6 am workouts together, you know, at school in Tallahassee, and he's on at 6 am like, just that personality is just going he said, There is no off switch. And then he's also a former high school teammate of Kaiir Elam, and I, I said to him, I said, I really think Kai is going to pop off this year, in year three. And he said that guy is super determined. He will not be denied. So it kind of buoyed my spirits in terms of the young talent that we were just talking about on this roster. So hopefully Jordan Travis, even though he's the third-string quarterback for the Jets, is right about his two former teammates at the high school and college level, because it's good things for the bills. If that's the case
JK: No doubt. Well, thank you, Chris for the time I look forward to as I'm sure all of Western New York is looking forward to you bringing this new look Buffalo Bills team to life without a picture over the radio.
CB: Yep, that is the challenge, but I am committed to seeing it through and kind of upholding the standard that van Miller and John Murphy carried for so long here.
JK: Well, thank you, Chris.
CB: You got it!
