Jason Brown Madden Career 2007-2012 - Peak 93 OVR

Jason Brown was the highest-paid center in football, then he gave it up to farm. A fourth-round pick out of North Carolina in 2005, Brown started every game of a four-year college career and never missed time as a pro either, anchoring the line in Baltimore before signing a five-year, $37.5 million deal with the St. Louis Rams in 2009 that made him the league's top-paid man at the position. The Rams released him in March 2012.

Madden tracked that arrival in real time, from a 71 in the 2006 edition to a 93 in the 2008 game, with ratings holding in the high 80s through his Rams years. Rather than chase another contract, Brown retired at 29 and taught himself to farm from online videos. On his 1,000-acre First Fruits Farm in Louisburg, North Carolina, he has grown sweet potatoes and cucumbers and donated the harvest to food pantries, giving away more than 500,000 pounds of sweet potatoes and 50,000 pounds of cucumbers.