Brown set to practice with Patriots
Receiver has yet to practise with new teammates
Wide receiver Antonio Brown has been an early bird all week at New England’s facilities and will practise for the first time with the Patriots on Wednesday, NFL Network reported Tuesday.
Coach Bill Belichick said that doesn’t necessarily mean he will play Sunday at Miami.
“Take it day by day,” Belichick told NBC Sports Boston on Tuesday. “We haven’t practised yet. We’re going through information with him like we would any new player. Get out on the practice field and after Wednesday we’ll talk about Thursday and see how it goes.”
Brown, 31, inked a reported oneyear, Us$15-million deal that includes a $9-million signing bonus and a $20-million team option for 2020.
Belichick downplayed Brown’s past, responding to a question about Brown being a disruption with a name from the past that worked out pretty well.
“That’s the same thing you (the media) said about Randy Moss when we brought him in,” Belichick said Tuesday.
Odell Beckham Jr. said he wears his luxury watch wherever he goes and that will continue to extend to the football field.
The wide receiver wore the estimated $350,000 Richard Mille timepiece in his Cleveland Browns debut Sunday and it caught the attention of NFL officials, who were expected to discuss the matter with Beckham.
“I’ll still be wearing it,” Beckham told reporters Tuesday. “The same way I wear it every day I go to practice, when I go here, I go there, been wearing it. Take a shower with it on.
“It’s just on me.”
NFL rules don’t prohibit jewelry, but they do ban “hard objects.”
“You got to look into the rule book. It says you can’t wear any hard objects. The watch is plastic,” he said.
“People have knee braces on that are hard and made out of metal. You don’t see them taking them off. Everyone has jewelry on. So I’m good.”
The 26-year-old said he’s been singled out for attention.
“If anybody else would’ve worn the watch, if it was a $20 watch, it wouldn’t been no problem,” he said. “That’s just my life.”
Beckham caught seven passes for 71 yards in the Browns’ loss on Sunday to Tennessee.
Oakland Raiders cornerback Gareon Conley was released from hospital on Tuesday after being kept overnight as a precaution following a neck injury sustained in Monday night’s game against Denver.
Conley was hurt when teammate Johnathan Abram’s leg smashed into Conley’s head while Conley was on the turf after missing a tackle. Members of both teams knelt on the ground for several minutes while Conley was being examined.
Former Oakland Raiders linebacker
Neiron Ball died on Tuesday, nearly a year after suffering a brain aneurysm. He was 27.
Ball played at Florida from 201114 before the Raiders selected him in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL draft.
As a sophomore in college, Ball was diagnosed with a rare congenital condition called arteriovenous malformation, which causes blood vessels in the brain to become entangled and rupture.