People thought that Terrell Owens was crazy when he took popcorn and threw it into his helmet as a celebration during his time with the Dallas Cowboys. People thought that Chad Ochocinco was crazy when he made a fake hall of fame jacket for himself for one of his many celebrations. Although both of them are nuts, neither compare to what Antonio Brown has down this previous offseason.
After 9 seasons of playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers and being the best wide receiver in football, Antonio Brown said that he wants to leave the team and go elsewhere for the upcoming season. He was traded to the Oakland Raiders. Their head coach was Jon Gruden. The team is in a rebuilding year with Derek Carr constantly improving, Josh Jacobs as a new running back and adding some new players on defense. With the addition to Brown, the Raiders were gonna debatably gonna be a playoff contender.
To start training camp in the end of July, Antonio Brown entered flying in on a hot air balloon with frostbite on the bottom of his feet due to a cryotherapy mishap earlier in the month in France due to Brown not wearing the proper footwear. I wouldn’t necessarily consider this his fault, just him being a little stupid.
Continuing on, the NFL changed its rules regarding helmets. They didn’t allow some to be worn in the games because they were dangerous. In this case, the league was trying to be helpful and protect the players but Antonio Brown thought of it a different way, he got pissed off. He wanted to wear the helmet that he has worn his entire career. Brown threatened to never play football again if he couldn’t wear the helmet he wanted. He filed a grievance against the NFL for this and he lost. Then he filed another one and lost again. AB was forced into asking the Raiders to take him back onto the team. He was forced into wearing one that he hasn’t played with before after a lot of convincing.
It looks like all the issues are resolved and he is ready to play football. This is Antonio Brown though, there is always gonna be an issue. He got into a huge fight with the general manager Mike Mayock. It involved a lot of cursing, yelling and kicking of footballs. For some reason the team didn’t end up suspending him. Instead they made an executive decision that was needed to be made. The Oakland Raiders cut the star wide receiver. He was just making the team worse with him in the locker room. It didn’t even affect the team much however, because he was never even there because of all his issues.
With no surprise at all, the New England Patriots picked him up without hesitating. Within days a new issue occurred, one that was much more serious than his previous ones. He was accused of three incidents of sexual assault on his former trainer. Brown did play week 2 against the Dolphins but a little after the game the Patriots released him because they thought it was a good idea not to have a guy like him in the organization.
Brown announced that he is going to go back to Central Michigan and get his degree. This is mainly because no team wants to sign him and I don’t blame the teams. This was the craziest offseason for one player that I have ever seen. Brown’s career might be over now. What a shame to see such a fantastic player let his ego get the best of him.