Kentrell Brothers (born February 8, 1993) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

who is currently a free agent. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

. He was drafted by the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

in the fifth round of the

2016 NFL Draft The 2016 NFL Draft was the 81st annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible American football players. As in 2015, the draft took place at the Auditorium Theatre and Grant Park in Chicago. The draft beg ...

High school career

Kentrell attended Guthrie High School in

Guthrie, Oklahoma Guthrie is a city and county seat in Logan County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City Metroplex. The population was 10,191 at the 2010 census, a 2.7 percent increase from the figure of 9,925 in the 2000 census. First kno ...

, where he was a two-way star for the Bluejays

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

team at

defensive end Defensive end (DE) is a defensive position in the sport of gridiron football. This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formation (American football), formations over the years have substantially ...

and wide receiver. During a playoff game in his junior year, Brothers roasted an

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

-committed offensive lineman in a game against Duncan for four sacks. As a senior, he turned around and recorded five sacks on the same commit against Duncan in week 1, and also managed to score three touchdowns in that game. Following his junior season at Guthrie, Missouri became the first school to offer him a scholarship offer. Over the course of his senior year in which he posted over 100

tackles Tackle may refer to: * In football: ** Tackle (football move), a play in various forms of football ** Tackle (gridiron football position), a position in American football and Canadian football ** Dump tackle, a forceful move in rugby of picking up ...

and 19 sacks as a defensive end and caught 63 balls for 1,304 yards and 18

touchdowns A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether Rush (gridiron football), running, Forward pass, passing, returning a Kickoff (gridiron football), kickoff or Punt (gridiron football), punt, or recovering a Turno ...

at wide receiver, the number of scholarships ballooned to 14 offers from all across the country. In addition to football, Brothers also participated in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

at Guthrie. Brothers was regarded as a three-star recruit by

Rivals.com Rivals.com is a network of websites that focus mainly on college football and basketball recruiting in the United States. The network was started in 1998 and employs more than 300 personnel. History Rivals.com was founded in 1998 by Jim Heckma ...

and committed to the

to play

on November 11, 2010.

College career

After redshirting his first year at Missouri in 2011 due to an injury, Brothers played in 11 games as a redshirt freshman in 2012 and recorded 14 tackles. As a sophomore in 2013, Brothers became a starter and started all 14 games. He finished the year with 70 tackles, three

interceptions In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

and one sack. As a junior in 2014, he had a team-leading 122 tackles.

Statistics

Professional career

Minnesota Vikings

At the NFL Combine, Brothers ran the

40-yard dash The 40-yard dash is a sprint covering . It is primarily run to evaluate the speed and acceleration of American football players by scouts, particularly for the NFL Draft but also for collegiate recruiting. A player's recorded time can have a he ...

in 4.89 seconds, which ranked 27th among 31 linebackers, but his 4.73-second sprint at Missouri Pro Day would have tied him for the fifth-fastest among inside-linebacker prospects. In addition, he also improved his

vertical jump A vertical jump or vertical leap is the act of jumping upwards into the air. It can be an exercise for building both endurance and strength, and is also a standard test for measuring athletic performance. It may also be referred to as a ''Sargent ...

3 inches to inches and matched his

bench press The bench press, or chest press, is a weight training exercise in which the trainee presses a weight upwards while lying on a weight training bench. Although the bench press is a full-body exercise, the muscles primarily used are the pectorali ...

with a personal-record 19 repetitions. Brothers was drafted by the

in the fifth round, 160th overall, in the

. Brothers didn't play any defensive snaps as a rookie, but he contributed to the team as a special teamer, finishing third on the Vikings with nine special teams tackles. He was the only player to make two units on the All- PFF Special Teams teams. On April 20, 2018, Brothers was suspended the first four games for violating the NFL's

performance-enhancing drugs Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where bann ...

policy. After becoming a free agent following the

2019 NFL season The 2019 NFL season was the 100th season of the National Football League (NFL) and the 54th of the Super Bowl era. The season began on September 5, 2019, with the NFL Kickoff Game, in which Green Bay defeated Chicago. The season concluded w ...

, Brothers was suspended for the first nine weeks of the

2020 NFL season The 2020 NFL season was the 101st season of the National Football League (NFL). The regular season started with the NFL Kickoff Game on September 10, in which defending Super Bowl LIV champion Kansas City defeated Houston. The playoffs were ...

on July 17, 2020. He was reinstated from suspension on November 10, 2020.

Montreal Alouettes

Brothers signed with the

Montreal Alouettes The Montreal Alouettes (Canadian French, French: Les Alouettes de Montréal) are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the Canadian F ...

of the CFL on February 17, 2021.

NFL career statistics

References

External links

Missouri Tigers bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brothers, Kentrell 1993 births Living people People from Guthrie, Oklahoma Players of American football from Oklahoma American football linebackers Missouri Tigers football players Minnesota Vikings players Montreal Alouettes players