Will Brown’s baggage fit in with Brady, Belichick?
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – So here comes Antonio Brown. Welcome to the village, bruh. “Gotta love football here,” Julian Edelman told USA TODAY after the New England Patriots opened the new season with a 33-3 dismantling of Brown’s old team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The reigning Super Bowl MVP was ebullient about adding arguably the NFL’s best receiver — despite all the baggage the combustible Brown rolls with.
“We like football players that love football,” Edelman said. “We all have that same kind of love for the game. It can work out really well. We look forward to that. He’s a playmaker. And the more playmakers you have, the more dynamic it will be.”
Oh, it will be dynamic — one way or another.
Brown could be on the verge of becoming the next NFL malcontent to enter Bill Belichick’s kingdom and suddenly see the light of a team-first operation — just as Mike Tomlin and Jon Gruden try to run, by the way — and fall in line.
If not, it’s still going to make for one intriguing NFL sociological study.
That’s what it has come to with Brown, whose immense talent has increasingly been overshadowed by the drama. But you know how it is in the NFL. Talent gets you another chance ... if you don’t kneel during the national anthem like a Colin Kaepernick.
And boy, did the Patriots just add some talent. Just hours after his release from the Raiders on Saturday he agreed to a one-year contract potentially worth $15 million with a $9 million signing bonus. That avoids some level of shame after he lost out on $29 million in guaranteed money from the Raiders (which will likely be contested), and he has to think he’ll be positioned for another big payday next year ... if this works out.
The oddsmakers are buying it. After Brown’s cross-country move, the Patriots suddenly leap-frogged the Kansas City Chiefs to become favorites to win Super Bowl LIV. Another Super Bowl.
Did the Patriots — who raised a sixth Super Bowl championship banner Sunday night — just catch another break in snagging such a premier talent? Probably.
But you can imagine how Ben Roethlisberger views it.
“Whatever,” the Steelers quarterback said after a dreadful performance by his sans Brown unit.
Add the Brown case to questions in recent weeks from Patriots rivals. Josh Gordon, back so soon? Patrick Chung, still eligible to play? Robert Kraft, skirting a suspension?
It’s all in the fine print, folks. Now this. If you can believe high-profile agent Drew Rosenhaus — love him or loathe him, he has a knack for finding
talented clients work amid crisis — Brown is ready to accept the so-called Patriot Way.
We’ll see. By late Saturday, Brown had already posted on social media a cartoon image of himself in a Patriots uniform, counting cash with the message: “Business is Boomin.”
Brown’s social media activity certainly hasn’t been confused with the close-to-the vest Patriot Way. He used a secretly recorded conversation with Gruden to fuel the narrative for a twominute video that was as slick as a Nike ad. He also posted the fine letter he received from Raiders GM Mike Mayock, which apparently fueled a fiery exchange that had to be broken up. During his Pittsburgh tenure — which ended last December with conflicting opinions about whether Brown refused to play in the season finale with a playoff berth on the line, days after being sent home after a dispute — Brown once livestreamed a Tomlin post-game speech.
The culture he is joining with the Patriots is such that Belichick has been known to chew out iconic quarterback Tom Brady as he would some thirdstring
linebacker. No kid gloves.
When someone asked Belichick during his postgame news conference if he could shed light on the decision to sign Brown, the coach, in his consistent fashion, replied: “No, I’ll talk about the game and the players that are on our team.”
Welcome to the village, A.B. Devin McCourty, the safety and team captain, struck a similar tone.
“We’ve got plenty of time to talk about Antonio Brown,” McCourty said. “I just feel like tonight is a big credit to the guys that have been putting in the work since April.”
No, Brown wasn’t at the game that illustrated just how much work Pittsburgh’s offense needs to do without him. Yet even with his absence — or anticipation of his arrival — it was apparent that his new teammates are ready to embrace him.
Strikingly, Brady told USA TODAY he’d welcome Brown to stay at his home — a mansion with a guest house that sits on five acres in Brookline, Massachusetts. That’s a great gesture, backing up the star quarterback’s willingness to put in extra work to get Brown up to speed with the Patriots’ system.
Brady knows. Talent wins. It’s no wonder that Brady told team owner Robert Kraft he was “a million percent in” on adding Brown.
“We’ve got a lot of players that are talented and we’ve just got to figure out how to make it all work,” said Brady, who shredded Pittsburgh for 341 yards and three TDs. “It’s the beginning of a long marathon and the NFL is very competitive, and it’s going to be a great challenge. But I think we’re all looking forward to it.”
The Patriots entered training camp with major questions about the viability of their wide receiver corps and the manner in which they would fill the void left with the retirement of tight end Rob Gronkowski. Now they suddenly look to have the NFL’s deepest collection of receivers. Brown joins Edelman, Gordon, Phillip Dorsett — who had a game-high 95 receiving yards and two TDs, including a 58-yard strike on a deep seam route — and Demaryius Thomas.
Chemistry is undoubtedly the X-factor with Brown. One of Brown’s social media posts over the weekend contained a seemingly cryptic analogy about a child being motivated to burn down a village if he is not embraced by that village. Hmmm. Sounds as if it could have been a message for Mayock and the Raiders.
The new village awaits. Listen to some of Brown’s new teammates, and work ethic will be the key for winning over the locker room.
“He’s a good football player, obviously,” Patriots running back James White told USA TODAY. “He’s had a lot of success in this league, so we’ll accept him in here. I know he works extremely hard. Excited to have him here, ready to work.”
White flashed a knowing grin when asked about Brown’s dramatic episodes with the Raiders that have generated so much attention in recent weeks.
“A lot of stuff, obviously,” White said. “I can’t judge him for what happened previously. We’ll accept anybody who comes in this locker room. Fresh start when you come in here. We’ll see.”
And everybody will be watching.