Brown wears out welcome in Foxboro after just 14 days
A third NFL team in six months has had it with Antonio Brown.
On Friday afternoon, the New England Patriots announced they were done with the controversy magnet, who has doubled this decade as one of pro football’s premier wide receivers.
In recent years, especially since December, the 31-year-old has misbehaved to such a degree as to make three NFL employers get rid of him in exasperation.
At 4:09 p.m. EDT Friday,
Brown broke the news when he not so cloakingly tweeted: “Thank you for the opportunity @Patriots #GoWinIt.”
The Cuban Missile Crisis is remembered as Thirteen Days in October. The Patriots’ Antonio Brown escapades might go down as Fourteen Days in September. Because it was just on Sept. 7 that Brown agreed to terms with the defending champions, mere hours after having requested and received his release from the Oakland Raiders.
The Raiders had him for less than six months, after acquiring Brown in a trade from the Pittsburgh Steelers, the South Florida native’s NFL home for his first nine seasons. Brown was named a Pro Bowler seven times in Pittsburgh.
Increasingly, however, Brown proved a huge internal distraction for the Steelers. After months of pouty behaviour last season, he abandoned the Steelers four days before their last regular-season game, a must-win contest, over some perceived affront from Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Brown refused to take or reply to phone calls or text messages from the QB or even head coach Mike Tomlin.
When Brown showed up on game day intending to play, Tomlin told him to not bother dressing.
Since that Dec. 30 game, Brown has self-manufactured a long string of self-topping, self-serving, self-centred, self-defending outrages — a dizzying, enraging and sad litany of public vitriol, odd actions, acrid accusations plus continuing off-kilter, off-putting behind-the-scenes behaviour, all of which has produced a toxic but captivating mix of melodrama.
In Oakland, Brown went from frostbitten feet to his babyish and ultimately unsuccessful public fights and missed practices in his bizarre attempts to wear an outdated, banned helmet model; to being fined for missing on-field workouts; to nearly coming to blows over it with Raiders GM Mike Mayock; to being banned for two days of practices; to being reinstated, only to orchestrate his release a day later with more unstable actions embarrassing to the Raiders.
In his less than two weeks in Foxboro, bizarreness quickly turned to darker and more disturbing incidents.
First, a week ago Tuesday, Britney Taylor, a former personal trainer of Brown’s, filed a civil suit in South Florida seeking unspecified monetary damages. Taylor claims Brown sexually assaulted her three times from 2017-18, including one incident of rape. Brown’s lawyer denied all accusations.
Brown was permitted to play Sunday.
The NFL launched an investigation, however, and on Monday the league interviewed Taylor for more than 10 hours.
The Patriots had Brown’s back. The last straw was a series of reports this week from Robert Klemko of Sports Illustrated. On Monday, the reporter revealed events in Brown’s life since his days at Central Michigan University late last decade that, based on interviews with people “who have dealt with Brown, as well as reviews of court and police documents from three states, paint a disturbing picture.”
Klemko’s new accusations ranged from a previously unknown alleged act of sexual misconduct, plus repeated purported incidents of withholding owed payments to charities and others, plus “multiple domestic incidents.”
Finally, Thursday night, Klemko further reported that following his bombshell report, Brown allegedly “included an accuser in a series of text messages claiming” the woman Klemko profiled Monday “was only out for money,” and Brown, asked “others to look into her background,” and in so doing included a photo of the woman’s children.
“Through her lawyer,” Klemko wrote, “the woman has now asked the NFL to intervene.”
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick refused to discuss the accusations and Brown’s status with the team in any detail at his Friday news conference.
But late Friday afternoon, the club released the following statement: “The New England Patriots are releasing Antonio Brown. We appreciate the hard work of many people over the past 11 days, but we feel that it is best to move in a different direction at this time.”
According to pro sports salaries website Spotrac.com, Brown leaves behind dead-cap hits of US$5.5 million in 2019 and up to $4.5 million in 2020 with the Patriots. This, for less than two weeks of work, one game of production (four catches for 56 yards and a touchdown) and who knows how much other aggravation.
Money-wise, Brown has left $26.6 million of 2019 dead cap with the Patriots and Steelers.
If Brown’s NFL career is over — and it sure feels like it — his reputation and legacy seem poisoned for good.
What a waste. JoKryk@postmedia.com
Twitter: @JohnKryk