Brown has once again performed the impossible
It is nearly impossible for one of the greatest athletes of his or any generation to get blackballed from his sport.
Talent almost always trumps all. Unique ability forces teams to blindly overlook a player’s shortcomings and transgressions and even his criminal behavior. Teams routinely sell their soul to the devil to win.
Antonio Brown has done the impossible.
A week ago, I believed Brown — the greatest wide receiver I’ve seen in a city that has watched Hall of Famers Lynn Swann and John Stallworth — absolutely would play again in the NFL despite his despicable behavior with the Steelers and Oakland Raiders and the
allegations of rape against him by one woman and of sexual assault by another woman.
Then, I watched the video that Brown posted Monday on Instagram Live that showed him vulgarly cursing the mother of three of his five children, as well as the Hollywood, Fla., police who were called to his home because of the disturbance, with his children watching. Now, I’m convinced Brown will never get another chance with an NFL team.
Nor should he.
The Hollywood Police Athletic League quickly severed ties with Brown, who had donated money to its football program and trained on its field. “We did not want our youth to be subject to this type of behavior nor emulate the actions of Mr. Brown. We will not take money from a donor that we cannot have our youth be proud of or represent our organization.” The police league returned Brown’s money.
The NFL also appears to want nothing more to do with Brown. It has gone out of its way to take its time to do its investigations into all of the allegations against him. The league knows no team will sign Brown until it knows what sort of suspension he will receive for violating the players’ code of conduct. The league is in no hurry to provide that clarity.
In the meantime, Brown waits in limbo, although it is a limbo he certainly has brought upon himself.
Brown’s longtime agent Drew Rosenhaus finally decided that he also is stepping away from Brown after supporting him for months, probably because he knows a meal ticket when he sees one. Rosenhaus stuck with Brown through all of his disturbing behavior, including Brown’s messy divorce from the Steelers, his attacks on Ben Roethlisberger, JuJu Smith-Schuster, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and the NFL, as well as the rape and sexual assault allegations and a number of lawsuits against Brown for everything from non-payment for services to throwing furniture from the balcony of his Florida condo and damaging the condo.
But the latest video apparently was too much even for Rosenhaus. He wrote in a letter Thursday to the NFL Players Association that he would like to work with Brown again but won’t do it until Brown gets help.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported in a story in December that Brown told his father,
Eddie, that he was undergoing therapy and realized he needed to change his behavior.
It’s pretty clear that therapy hasn’t helped.
Brown has acted so bizarrely that he almost has become a sympathetic figure. Something has to be wrong with him, right? Maybe it was that brutal hit to the head he took from the Cincinnati Bengals’ Vontaze Burfict in the playoffs after the 2015 season. Nobody who says he lives for football and wants to play again in the NFL would sabotage his efforts to get back the way Brown has if he was of sound mind. Just last month, the New Orleans Saints brought Brown in for a tryout, saying they were doing their due diligence with him. He responded a few days later by blasting the team on social media for using him for “a publicity stunt.”
Pro Football Talk hilariously pointed out that Brown was burning a bridge with Saints coach Sean Payton that hadn’t even been built yet. He already had burned bridges with Mike Tomlin, the Raiders’ Jon Gruden and the Patriots’ Bill Belichick, coaches who had combined to win eight Super Bowls.
I just wonder if the worst is yet to come. I fear we’re going to wake up one day to news that Brown hurt himself or somebody else. Or that he is dead.
Really, would you be surprised?
But Brown is a grown man. He is capable of getting more help. He certainly has the resources even though he might be on the verge of losing $40 million in what he thought was guaranteed money.
Brown isn’t the concern here, anyway.
What about Brown’s children who watched his frightening tirade against their mother and the police? Can you imagine their horror? Can you imagine what they were and are feeling? Who is worried about them?
Brown’s kids are the biggest victims of his appalling behavior.
Who is going to step up to help them?