Everyone Knows It’s Not Polite To Ask But You Can’t Help Yourself How Much Do You Weigh, Gilbert?

Gilbert Brown is seated in a little booth, with a little microphone, on a little seat inside not-so-little Qualcomm Stadium.

Okay, maybe the seat isn’t little. Or the booth for that matter. It just looks that way. Brown is lopping over the side of the chair, filling up the ample space, and when he leans over the small railing - when he leans down to answer a question that, oops, a dumb reporter unthinkingly asked him - well, that big belly rolls over with him, along with the size 24 neck and the mammoth arms and the face so big it seems to loom over the entire proceeding.

“Um, how much do you weigh?” is usually the question that gets Brown started. His weight has always been the topic of great speculation, and even greater now that his Green Bay Packers are back in the Super Bowl. The Packers media guide lists him at 345 pounds, up 20 from last season. His coach has quietly put it 20 pounds higher than that, at 365. Mike Shanahan, whose Denver Broncos face Brown this Sunday, threw out the number 400.

“Next question!” Brown answers, quickly.

“Are you tired of people bringing up your weight all the time?”

“Everybody harps on my weight. I’m used to it.”

“Are you sensitive about it?”

“Am I sensitive? No, I’m not sensitive.”

“So … what do you weigh?”

“Next question!”

Brown’s weight is more than a simple curiosity here at Super Bowl XXXII. It is a cause for consternation, for worry, for fear. In and of himself, Brown signifies perhaps the biggest mismatch in a Super Bowl that already features the Packers as serious favorites. On one side of the line of scrimmage, the Packers have a defensive line anchored by this 300-whatever-pound tackle. On the other side, the Denver offensive line weighs an average of 290 pounds. John Elway had better be prepared to get battered. And Terrell Davis, the Broncos’ running back, is worrying about the size of his holes.

“They have a big body in the middle,” Davis said. “You have to account for him. You have to make a lot of linemen try to move him out of the way. That’s going to free up a lot of guys to make tackles.”

Davis is not exaggerating the problem.

“There’s no use game-planning for Gilbert Brown,” said Mark Schlereth, a Broncos guard. “You’re not going to move him out of there. You run away from him.”

Actually, the most popular question is not the weight question, but the food question - the hunt for the ingredients to the specially designed Whopper Plus produced by Brown’s local Green Bay Burger King.

“What’s in a Gilbertburger, Gilbert?”

Brown rolls his eyes. This question has already been answered. About 500 times.

“Look,” he says, “this is the last time I’m going to go over it. Two patties. Four slices of cheese. A whole tomato. Lettuce. Onion. Lots of mayo. Two buns. Cut it in half. No pickle.”

“Why cut it half?”

“That makes it a big burger. So you have to cut it in half. Because if you don’t, it goes all down your arm.”

The weight problem - although Brown hates people who use that word, problem - began when he was a child, and his mother, Ann, cooked up a storm then told young Gilbert to clean his plate. By the time he reached high school, Brown’s coaches made him join the track team in the spring, in an attempt to keep the poundage down to something relatively reasonable.

“What events did you do, Gilbert?”

“I did shot put, threw the discus …”

Then comes the kicker:

“And I ran the 100.”

“The 100?” Incredulity runs through the crowd.

“Uh-huh.”

“How big were you then?”

“At the time I was 300, 305.”

“Did you set any state records?”

A big belly laugh comes from the man who lovingly calls his midsection “the front porch.”

“Man,” he answers, “if I had the state record, then there ain’t no athletes in Michigan.”

The thing is, Brown can run. Try to get away from him on the football field and he’ll be after you. He ran the 40 in 5 seconds flat last summer.

“He looks 400 pounds,” Shanahan said, somewhat in awe of the concept, “and he looks quick to me.”

Brown hears this and is flattered, briefly.

“Four hundred pounds?” he says, contemplating. “I don’t know about the 400 pounds.”

Truth is, he doesn’t care much - or worry much - about the weight. It has embarrassed him only one time. It was second grade. He sat on a little blue chair and the little blue chair broke. His classmates laughed. “That’s the only time,” he said, “that I wished I was smaller.”

Others do worry. Brown missed the final two games of the regular season with knee and ankle problems that probably were exacerbated - if not caused - by wear and tear his heft places on his joints. Packers coach Mike Holmgren only played him in about half of the playoff game against Tampa Bay.

“When he gets too big, I worry,” Holmgren said. “He’s never going to be a little guy. He gives you everything he’s got. He’s so quick. His teammates love him. What I worry about is his long-term career, and his health.”

Brown shrugs. He’s not worried about his health. He’s not thinking about having health problems, he’s thinking about giving them - preferably to the Broncos on Sunday. And maybe a few weight-obsessed reporters within easy reach.

“Why do they call you ‘Grave Digger,’ Gilbert?”

“Because I dig graves on the field.”

Brown leans over the railing again, trying - with great success - to look ominous.

“You want me to dig you one?”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: SUPER SUNDAY Kickoff: Green Bay vs. Denver at San Diego, 3 p.m. TV: NBC.