The first time he walked into the New York Giants facility, Brandon London knew he'd made it. There, in the locker room, amongst the rows of brightly lit wooden stalls, atop the plush blue carpet emblazoned with a colossal rendering of the team logo, holding a nonchalant powwow with some of the franchise's public relations guys, was Giants franchise quarterback Eli Manning.
And though London, the son of a coach and a football lifer, was only five feet away from what he'd long presumed would be his destiny, he was, in all reality, a world away, still struggling to overcome the choices of a young man not yet ready for the responsibility that comes, tethered like an anchor to a chain, to the spotlight.
London grew up in Richmond, Va., the son of former UVA Cavaliers head coach and current Maryland associate head coach Mike London Sr. When the younger London found himself on the cusp of making the jump from high school to college, dad was just in his first season as the defensive line coach at UVA. The allure of joining Mike at his alma mater, where both he and his brother, Paul, Brandon's uncle, had played their college ball, was strong. But that notion was squashed - unintentionally - by Brandon well before the process could ever even play out.
"When I was a senior, not only did I have poor grades, but I had a poor attitude and there was really nothing my dad could do for me," London told Headlines & Global News recently.
London, who'd nearly cost himself the opportunity to play college football thanks to a high school career rife with "young mistakes," spent a season at military prep school Fork Union Military Academy, improving his grades and, more importantly, trying to scrub clean an image that had, in the eyes of college scouts, become severely tarnished.
It's a trend that would follow him throughout his football life.
First & 10
But London just couldn't shake that "me" label, couldn't find a way to keep himself from the party scene, even when he signed to the Miami Dolphins practice squad three games into the following season. Opportunities away from the field continued to crop up for the square-jawed, steely-eyed London - opportunities like walking in fashion shows for the Academics clothing line or appearances on BET - and when they came, London just couldn't bring himself to say no.
"The Miami Dolphins didn't like that at all. They didn't like any of the stuff I was doing off the field," he says. "Because they were like, 'You know, you're down here to play football, you're not down here to model, you're down here to do this.'"
Miami head coach Tony Sparano's staff took issue with nearly all of London's endeavors, calling him up to the offices like some pigskin principal trying to knock an unruly student into line. There were talkings-to, there were comparisons to the bombastic and attention-seeking Terrell Owens' exploits. There was even an effort to keep tabs on the notoriously social London. There was a particular car service, preferred by London because the first two hours were free, through which the team would monitor London's comings and goings based on receipts.
Throughout it all, London maintains that he worked, and he worked hard. He took his conditioning seriously. He took his rehab seriously. If the team was forced to run "gassers," London was coming out on the winning end the majority of the time, even against guys like Ted Ginn Jr., a receiver drafted by Miami in the top 10 of the 2007 first round.
"I prided myself on conditioning. I prided myself on having that mindset like, 'I'm not going to lose,'" says London.
But the Dolphins weren't impressed, and following a middling performance in the 2009 preseason, London again found himself bounced from his professional football home.
Looking back, though, London disagrees with the notion that his off-field endeavors were ever a hindrance to his play on the field.
"Nah. Not at all. Not at all. There were times when I went out and then went to a workout the next morning. So I would be out on South Beach all night until three, four in the morning, wake up 7:30 for our workout group, maybe I'd smell like a little bit of alcohol, but I would crush my lift and then when we would do conditioning. I wouldn't lose once."
Despite it all, despite the partying and the business ventures and the work in the weight room, London can still point to two specific plays during training camp with Miami that season that he believes doomed his tenure with the team and maybe his chance at a long-term NFL future.
It now seems to perfectly encapsulate an NFL career that would end as nothing more than unfulfilled potential.
"It was the first preseason game, I had already had an 18- or 19-yard catch on a third down, so you're feeling good about yourself and we're going into score on the three or four yard line, and I had a play called for me. It was like a fade ball, from a rub route. And Chad Henne doesn't snap the ball."
Instead of scoring a potential touchdown, the Dolphins took a delay of game penalty and the coaches called a different play on the ensuing down.
"That was the play. We'd practiced it all week. I was like the red zone package guy. So it was like, 'that's my play.' I knew I was going to come down with that."
Then, in the last preseason game against the New Orleans Saints, London had a chance for a big play on a hot route out of the slot. He lined up across from recent Saints first-round pick Malcom Jenkins out of Ohio State. Jenkins dropped some trash talk on London, but London, so intent on making Jenkins eat his words, didn't see the ball come his way.
"I always look back at those two plays and believe that's the reason I didn't keep it going," London says.
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When London made the jump to the CFL after 2009, the football coach's son had already made up his mind that those "opportunities" that kept springing up in Miami had become his best bet for a prosperous - and lucrative - future.
"There's a quote from Cris Carter - 'with football, take as much money and memories as you can,'" London says. "So I looked at it like that. I wanted to go up there and create memories, create my brand for myself and make some money and just go into acting."
At just 25, London's mindset had changed again. The resolve, the desire to be great, was still there, but the overall goal had changed. Looking back, he's not sure why that was the case.
"I don't know why I didn't think of it like that," he says, the sound of absent-minded scratching at an upturned chin almost audible in his voice. "But my plan was to go up there, start taking classes, start getting myself some on-camera training to get myself ready to go out to Hollywood one day."
Hollywood. It's where London wanted to be. And it's where the aspiring actor, broadcaster and entertainer is now, where he hopes the next great leg of his journey will transpire.
"I kind of wanted to model myself after what Michael Strahan had started doing at the time," London says of his jump to Los Angeles in 2014. "He was doing 'Pros vs. Joes,' and then he had that sitcom on FOX after he retired. There was a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to do."
London put together two successful seasons in the CFL with the Montreal Allouettes. In 2011 he caught 38 balls for 475 yards and a touchdown. The next season, he took his game to another level, snagging 43 balls for 843 yards and three touchdowns.
Throughout it all, even while chasing interests off the field in Montreal, London held tight to that inkling, that desire nestled deeply in his heart, that was football.
"My heart was in it, because you can't play football if you don't have heart," he says.
When London spoke with HNGN, he was in the final days of a family trip to Puerto Rico. Before heading off on vacation to the rainy, muggy destination, he'd filmed segments for a show called "Hollywood Today Live" that will air on FOX. And, as he assured me, he'd be hard at work on auditions, networking and trying to build a space for himself in Tinseltown as soon as he got back.
But football, that little inkling, as it always seems to have throughout the thread of London's life, just won't leave him.
Questioned as to whether he ever has any thoughts of coaching, of following in dad's footsteps, London laughs.
"We've been talking about that this entire trip."
He admits that he's thought about it, that it's an open-ended conversation in his household, that he actually conducts training in Petersborough, N.J., at a football clinic aimed at helping some of the nation's top high school players take their game to the next level.
But even as he tries to deny it, even as waffles over the notion of ever becoming a full-time coach, you can tell London's not sure of saying no. London's still trying to make it, but ever the coach's son, the guy who just couldn't shake the "me" label, has, intentionally or not, shaped a football career around helping others to make it, of helping defensive backs in need of pre-Super Bowl prep, of helping young athletes, their futures still to be determined, to realize their dreams.
For now though, it's Hollywood. The future? Well, who knows?
"In terms of actual coaching, I just...I don't know yet."
