In 2009, Jason Brown signed a five-year contract with the St. Louis Rams worth $37.5 million. At the time it was the richest deal ever given to a center in the NFL. Three years later, at 29 years old, in the prime of his career, he quit. Not for another team. Not for injury. He quit to become a farmer. "My agent told me, you're making the biggest mistake of your life," Brown said. "And I looked right back at him and I said, no I'm not. No I'm not." The Baltimore Ravens called and offered him a way back into the league. He turned it down. Then he bought a thousand acres of an old dairy farm in Louisburg, North Carolina, and sold his 10,000 square foot mansion in St. Louis to pay to develop it. Here's the part that makes it insane. Jason Brown had never farmed anything. Not once. He knew nothing about crops, soil, equipment, seasons, any of it. So he taught himself. On the internet. "I went to the online University of YouTube while I was still playing football," he said. "I watched hours and hours of film every single day." He named the place First Fruits Farm, because of what he intended to do with it. The plan was to give away the first harvest of every crop to local food banks and keep the rest. That plan didn't survive contact with reality. Once he saw how much hunger there actually was around him, the Browns started giving away all of it. His first sweet potato harvest was 100,000 pounds. Every pound went to food pantries. Since then, First Fruits Farm has donated more than a million pounds of fresh produce to families who needed it. Now here's why he did any of this. Jason Brown had an older brother, Lunsford Bernard Brown II. In 2003, Lunsford was killed in Iraq while serving in the Army. He was 27. Brown was in college when it happened. Years later, sitting on an enormous contract, he did the math on his own life and realized he'd already outlived his brother, and he wasn't sure he'd done anything with it that mattered. He'd been given a talent and a fortune. Lunsford had been given 27 years. "People tell me I'm crazy," Brown said. "They downright tell me that I'm stupid, to walk away from millions of dollars. Because if you have the opportunity to play in the NFL then it's supposed to be a no-brainer." He and his wife have eight children, and they all work the farm. "Seeing my children out there in the farm field, knowing that they're learning life skills to help feed them and their families for generations to come, that is the blessing of a farm." He could have played five more years. He could have bought a bigger house. He grows sweet potatoes in North Carolina and gives them away. For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap