Cardinals like first-round pick Brown’s attitude

His father spent 21 years as a Marine, and Levi Brown sometimes felt the discipline of a military man. It’s easy for a child to rebel, especially when he is 6 feet tall by the time he is 11.

But Master Sgt. Brown — his name is also Levi — would break out the belt, and the younger Levi knew he had crossed the line.

But his dad, and his entire family, was always supportive in anything Brown did.

Abruptly decide he was going to start playing football instead of baseball in ninth grade, after friends challenged him by calling him a punk and soft? Go ahead. Take on a difficult International Baccalaureate Diploma program in high school? They had his back there, too.

“I think I turned out OK,” the tackle said Sunday, after his press conference officially introducing him as the Cardinals’ latest first-round selection and offensive line savior.

It is ironic the person Brown has become has led some to question the football player he can be.

The Cards want to be more physical, a role the 6-foot-5, 323-pound Brown can surely fill. But Brown’s mean streak — a necessary tool in the NFL — has been in doubt.

That, Brown just doesn’t understand.

“I can’t be a nice guy on the field,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t have made it this far.”

By his own admission, Brown is laid back. He owns degrees in both labor relations and psychology. The 23-year-old acknowledged that many people have commented how he is old beyond his years, speaking to a maturity most in his position do not have.

These are the character traits that drew the Cardinals to draft him fifth overall (and eventually give him a contract worth more than $17 million guaranteed) once they realized he could play the game.

“We felt we were drafting not only a good football player but a good person as well,” vice president of football operations Rod Graves said.

Cardinals offensive line coach Russ Grimm said he noticed Brown’s passion for the game during his opportunities to interview Brown before the draft. A trip to YouTube.com — just search for “Levi Brown” — shows a clip of Brown getting in the face of Penn State teammate BranDon Snow because Snow had been all over an assistant coach.

Brown, a team captain, wasn’t going to let that go on, forcefully getting his point across while ESPN cameras rolled.

“It happens,” Brown said. “Guy got a little out of control, it was distracting the team, so I had to step in and sort of calm the situation down.”

The Cardinals hope he will be both the player and the leader they never felt they got out of former tackle Leonard Davis.

Brown was given Davis’ old uniform No. 75.

Brown will start at right tackle, coach Ken Whisenhunt said. That is the blind side for quarterback Matt Leinart and the position most projected Brown to play in the NFL.

That will leave Mike Gandy and Oliver Ross to battle for the job on the left side, assuming Brown succeeds.

New teammate and receiver Bryant Johnson, who played with Brown for a season at Penn State, can’t see how Brown won’t succeed. He remembered Brown as a sponge in college, trying to learn everything he could.

“And he is a wonderful guy overall,” Johnson said. “He is a hard worker. You know what you are getting.”

Brown was still stunned he ended up in Arizona, since he assumed he would have been drafted by one of the three teams that brought him in for pre-draft visits: Miami, Washington and Atlanta.

Maybe that’s why his family was screaming so loud prior to his selection, so much so that Brown never did hear his name called by commissioner Roger Goodell.

Arizona it was.

“I sweat a lot,” Brown said with a smile, “so it is going to be an interesting fit.”

The Cardinals see Brown fitting just fine — on and off the field.