NFL has the means to extinguish the Antonio Brown tire fire
TORONTO — There’s an unmistakable tire-fire of a trend here that, if left alone, shows no sign of burning itself out any time soon. See if you can spot it.
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Last Wednesday, the NFL’S ballyhooed 100th season was just one day away. Normally, it’s a day when football fans literally begin counting down the hours till kickoff. Everyone, instead, was shaking their heads and talking all day and night about Antonio Brown.
How he’d lost his mind that day at Oakland Raiders practice, livid that the Raiders fined him $53,950 for missing mandatory on-field team preparatory work in August. In front of teammates and coaches, the superstar wide receiver whose Hall of Fame worthiness on the field is surpassed only by his otherworldly, loyal-only-to-self, disruptive egotism off it, swore up a storm, allegedly screamed a racial slur at Raiders GM Mike Mayock, and had to be restrained by teammates from going after Mayock. He was sent home.
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Last Thursday night, the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears kicked off the NFL’S 100th season with the Packers upsetting the host Bears in a classic display of mutual defensive domination. Everyone, instead, was shaking their heads and talking all day and night about Antonio Brown.
How he’d been told to stay home that day by the Raiders instead of practising for Oakland’s opener four days hence. A petulant Brown quickly unfollowed both the Raiders team and star quarterback Derek Carr on a popular social medium. Evening reports said the Raiders were preparing to cut Brown.
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Last Friday, the NFL rightfully bragged about how Packers-bears had kicked butt on TV the night before, with 22.2 million viewers, up 17% year-over-year, the biggest TV audience for any U.S. program since Super Bowl LIII in February. Everyone, instead, was shaking their heads and talking all day and night about Antonio Brown.
How the Raiders did an about-face that day and welcomed Brown back and said he’d play Monday night vs. Denver, after he apologized to his teammates and coaches to their faces, with so much apparent earnestness that Raiders captains stood by him. And the 31-year-old even repeated his apology outside to gathered reporters — only hours later to post a video to social media that included a recording of Raiders head coach Jon Gruden’s placating plea to Brown, presumably on a phone call earlier that day, requesting that Brown cease the B.S. and please come back to work.
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Last Saturday, 26 of 32 NFL teams were a day away from kicking off their seasons, with hundreds of crisscrossing, compelling club and player storylines alike, dozens worthy of section-topping headlines anywhere in North America. Everyone, instead, was shaking their heads and talking all day and night about Antonio Brown.
How, after being further fined by the Raiders, this time for his Wednesday behaviour, he demanded his outright release from the Raiders — and got it. Then, only a few hours later, before even supper hour in the East, how he’d agreed to terms with, of all teams, the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots.
Indeed, what had been only snickered about in jest for days — “Yeah, you watch, the Raiders will eventually dump him and Brown will be gobbled up in an eye-blink by the Patriots. Ha!” — actually happened.
Brown soon posted to his Youtube channel a video someone recorded of the moment he was informed by phone that the Raiders had released him, which he instantly celebrated by running outside and going bonkers in his backyard. It was a strange reaction to having forfeited some $20 million that day in guaranteed contract money.
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On Sunday, of 13 NFL games played, two went to overtime, two other games saw a team scoreless and down by at least 16 points rally to win, and eight games went down to the wire — as memorable an opening weekend as anyone could remember. But everyone, all the while, was still shaking their heads all morning and even into the afternoon and evening, talking about Antonio Brown.
How, the rampant speculation went, he might have gamed the Raiders and everyone by quite deliberately forcing that club to release him as a result of all those deliberately outrageous actions, so he could wind up in his preferred post-pittsburgh destination all along: New England. A captivating, if maddening, theory.
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On Monday, the NFL rightly reveled in fabulous overnight ratings from Sunday, on TV and on digital platforms alike — before one of the most exciting Week 1 Monday Night Football doubleheaders yet played. Everyone, though, was still shaking their heads and talking all day and night about Antonio Brown.
How his absence might affect the Raiders against the Broncos (not much, as it turned out), and how crazy it was that quarterback Tom Brady and others in the Patriots organization professed to have little or no concerns about what distractions Brown might be dragging with him to the NFL’S ultimate home of ‘To get along you go along.’ Brady, fer-cryingout-loud, even allowed Brown to actually live with him and his family for the time being. ——
On Tuesday, we learned there were 90 touchdowns scored in the 16 Week 1 NFL games, the most ever on kickoff weekend. But after a half-day’s respite after six days of almost non-stop Antonio Brown developments, everyone still wound up shaking their heads and talking all night about him.
How, in yet another breaking-news bombshell about “AB” — but this one far darker and way more disturbing than all the others put together — a former female personal trainer of his had just filed a civil suit in South Florida, seeking unspecified monetary damages. She claims Brown sexually assaulted her three times from 2017-18, including one incident of rape. An attorney for Brown quickly denied all charges, contending that Brown and the woman, Britney Taylor, instead were involved in a “consensual personal relationship,” and that Brown “will leave no stone unturned” in aggressively defending himself, possibly in a countersuit.
By late evening the Patriots announced “we take these allegations very seriously. Under no circumstances does this organization condone sexual violence or assault. The league has informed us that they will be investigating. We will have no further comment while that investigation takes place.”
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On Wednesday, nothing else seemingly mattered in the NFL. Not even all the impressive nitty-gritty details the league released about just how popular Week 1 games were across America. No, instead, everyone who cares about the league began the day shaking their heads and talking almost exclusively yet again about Antonio Brown.
The human tire-fire.
Calls for the NFL to do something about this character took on a whole new seriousness, despite agent Drew Rosenhaus contending on ESPN that his client, Brown, is innocent and that Taylor’s lawsuit is nothing but a blatant money-grab.
Shaunna Thomas, co-founder and executive director of Ultraviolet — a leading U.S. women’s organization long critical of the NFL’S actions in holding players accountable for sexual and domestic violence — demanded that Patriots owner Robert Kraft cut Brown.
Also before midday Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the NFL “will give serious consideration” to placing Brown on paid leave, through its commissioner’s exempt list. In that circumstance, Brown would continue to draw the 1/17th weekly portion ($58,823.53) of his reported $1-million salary (after getting a $9-million signing bonus earlier this week), but would be indefinitely disallowed from practising or playing with any team.
Barring such a shelving or outright release, Brown is expected to make his Patriots debut on Sunday against the Dolphins, in Miami.
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick on Wednesday — in continually denying to add any further enlightenment to the club’s Tuesday night statement — would only confirm at a news conference that Brown was expected to practise with the team.