HELMET PROTEST SHOWS BROWN HASN’T CHANGED
Star receiver’s selfish antics continue following arrival in camp with Raiders
From head to toe, Antonio Brown continues to be one huge pain in the ass, despite a change of NFL scenery.
The arch-enemy of quiet contentment remains a selfish, distracting, annoying presence on his new team, the Oakland Raiders, following nine years of increasingly self-manufactured, unhinged, me-first melodrama in Pittsburgh.
To summarize, and to exercise your neck muscles (as you’re sure to shake your head repeatedly), here’s a rundown of AB’S antics just since training camp opened, let alone all the garbage he said and did in winter to get traded to the Raiders by the Pittsburgh Steelers:
Brown literally flew into training camp on Oakland’s reporting day for veterans, July 26. In a hot-air balloon.
“I expect a lot more drama from No. 84, I really do,” Raiders GM Mike Mayock said that day, a ring-the-bell winner for least satisfyingly correct NFL prediction of the decade. Indeed, later that day the Raiders had to place Brown on the non-football injury list, with an undisclosed injury. Two days later Brown was cleared to participate in camp. He did so on a limited basis for two days, but hasn’t practised since. The club said the 31-yearold was dealing with sore feet and would see a foot specialist.
On Aug. 3 Brown posted photos to social media of horrible-looking, blistered soles on both his feet.
Last Tuesday, reports claimed Brown had suffered frostbite on his feet after having entered a cryotherapy machine without protective footwear. Maybe not technically frostbite. Former longtime San Diego Chargers team physician David Chao reported that Brown likely “was suffering from macerated feet from too much moisture” while training, and that by using “a cryotherapy machine without proper foot protection, in wet socks or with ‘wet’ macerated feet,” the cold damaged “the skin only on the moist soles of the outer layer of skin on his feet.”
Then there’s the helmet topper. ESPN’S Adam Schefter reported this past Friday not only that Brown had filed a grievance against the NFL — in his desire to continue wearing a helmet older than 10 years, and now on the league’s banned list — but that his continuing absence from Raiders practices “has more to do with his helmet than with his feet.” And furthermore, Brown “has told team officials that unless he gets to wear his old helmet, he will not play football again.” That would mean forfeiting US$30.125 million guaranteed in the new threeyear, $50.125-million contract he signed with the Raiders in March.
Also on Friday, well-connected NFL Network reporter Mike Silver, in a long Twitter thread, revealed numerous incidents of Brown’s purported petulant, distracted behaviour behind the scenes since joining the Raiders.
On the weekend it was reported that Brown had a two-hour grievance meeting on Friday with the league. While reports on Monday said the arbitrator ruled against Brown, the league did not announce a ruling by end of business on Monday. Earlier in the day, NFL VP of communications Brian Mccarthy tweeted — without referencing Brown by name — that an NFL player cannot practise nor play in a game “with equipment that’s not approved. If he doesn’t play or practise, he is in breach of his contract and doesn’t get paid.” Furthermore, Mccarthy tweeted that league policy prevents helmets more than 10 years old from being certified for use.
Think about it. Brown is actually threatening to sue the league if he gets hurt wearing a much safer helmet, rather than his old, uncertified, much more dangerous model.
Two months ago, the NFL’S senior VP for health and safety policy, Jeff Miller, discussed the league’s 2019 helmet policy with me.
The league again this year ranks the myriad brands. Helmets designated “green” are safest, based on extensive testing by a laboratory, followed by less-safe “yellow” helmets, and least safe “red.” This season the NFL has banned the 11 “red” helmet models: five from Rawlings, one from Riddell, three from Schutt and two from SG.
Last season 74 per cent of NFL players wore greens, after half switched to a safer brand. Fewer than three dozen of nearly 2,000 players wore reds.
“We know that 32 players who were in the red have to move into the better-performing helmets,” Miller said on June 21.
That’s fewer than two per cent of the league’s players. Of them, Brown apparently is the solitary holdout. He wants to keep wearing a Schutt AIR Advantage, a particularly lightweight model the manufacturer based in Litchfield, Ill., made from 2002-09.
As a large poster emblazoned on a wall in all 32 NFL locker rooms shows, there are 27 different “green” helmet models available to players in 2019, including four Schutt AIR types. There is even one Schutt AIR model among seven “yellow” category helmets approved.
The Schutt AIR XP Pro Q11 most closely resembles the old AIR Advantage on the outside, a source says, but the interiors are radically different. Probably Brown’s beef is with how newer helmet models feel.
Whatever. We all know he’s going to pick such a certified helmet within a week or so. And we all know he’s not going to retire. So just get on with it, Antonio.