Troy Brown wasn’t surprised when he heard Tedy Bruschi go after Chad Ochocinco this week.

In an epic rant (click here to listen), Bruschi hammered Ochocinco for a tweet following the Patriots’ season-opening win over the Dolphins in which the receiver professed amazement about seeing what the New England’s offense did in Miami. Speaking on WEEI's The Big Show Tuesday, Bruschi said Ochocinco, who had one catch for 14 yards, better “drop the awe factor” and “stop tweeting and get in your playbook.”

“You’re not someone who’s on another team or watching TV,” Bruschi said of Ochocinco, who was on the field for 18 of the 80 offensive snaps. “You’re not an analyst. You’re a part of it. They want you to be a part of it. So, get with the program because obviously you’re not getting it and you’re tweeting because you’re saying, ‘It’s amazing to see’? It’s amazing to see because you don’t understand it. You still don’t understand it, and it’s amazing to you because you can’t get it.”

“That was just Tedy being Tedy,” Brown said. “As he went on and on, that was a tone I’d heard before. He was getting more and more into that game mode. I knew where he was going with it. I think he had a problem with Ochocinco just watching the game, and then saying he was just waking up and tweeting about what he saw last night and how he was in awe.

“I know Tedy like that, Rodney [Harrison] knows Tedy like that, Ty [Law] knows Tedy like that. He puts passion behind his statements all the time,” Brown added. “In Tedy’s defense, we’ve been in that before. In the locker room in past years, when we weren’t playing well enough, it was time to put those dominoes and backgammon games away. Go find something else to help you get ready for that game.”

Later in the week, Harrison added his opinion, saying that Ochocinco “can’t be in awe of Tom Brady and these guys.”

“You know, you’ve played against Brady,” Harrison told ESPN Radio in Chicago. “You played against a lot of these championship teams. Why are you in awe? It just becomes a distraction. Like Tedy said, ‘Hey, man, be part of the program.’ ”

One new guy who was part of the program on Monday night was offensive lineman Brian Waters, who played 69 of the 80 offensive snaps at right guard for New England in his first game with the Patriots. After the game, Waters told reporters that Monday’s performance by the New England offense was “phenomenal,” but Waters wasn’t subject to the same withering critique that Ochocinco received.

“I think that was great, what Brian Waters had to say, but no one said a word about that because Brian isn’t the celebrity that Chad is,” Brown said. “Brian contributed for most of the game -- he had the right to say something. He was part of the win.

“What Tedy was saying was that you need to be a part of that awesomeness. Find a way to be a part of it. Find a way to be a part of that. And that’s the bottom line. You can sprinkle any kind of sugar you want on it, but you didn’t bring him here to stand and watch for 55 plays. And Tedy didn’t put him in a place where he lined up in the wrong place. Mistakes happen, but those mistakes negate a 40-yard play.”

Brown has been a big believer in the idea of bringing Ochocinco to the Patriots -- he said as much in an interview with WEEI.com back in January -- but said that right now, it’s a matter of confidence and trust.

“If you’re nervous -- and he looks nervous -- if you’re that much in awe of what’s going on around you, then maybe you’re in the wrong place,” Brown said. “Look, no one wanted Ochocinco here more than me. And I still think he’ll be an impactful player somewhere down the line. But you can’t tell me that everything will be fine. I think he’s a cool guy, but if you trusted him, he’d be on the field.

“I don’t care about the numbers -- I just think he doesn’t know what to do out there right now. It looks like he has a lack of confidence, and he’s afraid of being the guy who screws everything up. You can’t be afraid in this league. You can’t go into a game as a receiver in this offense without confidence. When you’re trying to think and play, it just slows everybody down. One second could be the difference in the game, and you can’t play the game if you don’t have the confidence to do it.”

Brown says Ochocinco should be cut some slack because he arrived at the start of training camp. If the deal to acquire the wide receiver would have gone down in the spring, for example, he would likely be much farther along in his acclimation into the New England system.

“He would have had time in the organized team activities and the passing camps and the other offseason programs. Time with Wes [Welker] and Deion [Branch] and Tom,” Brown said. “If the trade had gone through a lot earlier, I think he’d be a lot farther along. If this is something that happened when free agency started, then I think obviously he’d be much farther along. Not sure how much he’d still understand, but obviously it’d be a lot farther along than where he is right now.”

And according to Brown, the difference between working as a receiver for the Bengals and with the Patriots cannot be measured, and it will take time for the transition.

“Coming from Cincinnati to New England, it can be overwhelming when you come from a system like that and into one like this,” he said. “It’s a whole different word for him right now. He was in that system in Cincinnati for a long time, but it has to be a whole different dimension for him right now.”