Updated on Friday, Oct. 23 at 7:40 p.m.: According to ESPN, Antonio Brown reached an agreement with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Friday night. The troubled receiver reunites with Tom Brady, and is expected to make his 2020 debut in Week 9.
The countdown to the latest Antonio Brown sweepstakes seems to grow in importance everyday — even if the guy has shown us countless times who he is as a person.
Not that the NFL or its squads have really ever cared about who Brown is as a person.
Who cares about overt misogyny or complete disrespect for others? Winning is all that is important, right?
It’s not like profane laced utterances Brown has spewed at the mother of his children live on social media are disrespectful and wrong? Or the April 2018 Florida incident where Brown allegedly heaved furniture off of the deck of the apartment he was renting at the time, nearly striking children sitting in the pool deck area below.
That stuff doesn’t matter, I guess?
And it’s not like he hasn’t also been wrapped up in multiple sexual misconduct allegations, a sexual assault lawsuit, and a felony battery and burglary charge he was arrested for earlier this year. He did, after all, plead no contest to the battery and burglary charges and is on two years probation.
This is the guy teams like the Seattle Seahawks are willing to roll out the red carpet for in a few weeks, at the conclusion of Brown’s eight-game suspension for breaking the NFL’s personal conduct policy last season.
What about another great receiver, Josh Gordon? The Seahawks re-signed him last year, why hasn’t the league reinstated him?
We all know about Gordon’s off-the-field battle with substance abuse, a fight he’s been waging since he was a teen. He’s been on a roller coaster ride throughout his time in the league, making strides to get right, and show up as his full self. Why will the league reinstate a guy like Brown in a few weeks but not Gordon?
I know why, because Gordon is a “distraction.”
Ever notice the only time they drop that subjective word “distraction,” is when it’s used as an excuse to not do the right thing?
It’s been used time and time again with Colin Kaepernick, but never with guys who’ve actually gotten into trouble with the legal system.
Y’all notice that?
Maybe it’s just me.
For Gordon, it’s been 126 days since he applied for reinstatement back into the NFL. No word on when he will be granted it. But hooray for us that we have breaking news on the teams interested in signing Brown when his eight-game suspension is up!
It’s one week away, but teams are lined up around the building salivating at the opportunity to entice Brown to their organization.
Sick on all levels.
“We really don’t know and don’t have contact to speak of,” Pete Carroll said earlier this week about Gordon’s. “We don’t know any more than you do at this point. We’re just waiting it out for word from the league, unfortunately.”
Gordon played five games last season, and wildly enough, Seattle is one of the teams pushing to sign Brown when he becomes available in two weeks.
This pushes me to ask, how is a guy like Gordon not already reinstated? And even further, does the NFL not care about the optics of how this looks?
They probably don’t care how this looks. Greg Hardy, Tyreek Hill, and various other players who faced domestic violence allegations were given a pass by the league and the stories fizzled out of mainstream media.
The media and the league just let it go after a while.
Both were back in the league like nothing ever happened.
Gordon hasn’t faced any off-the-field legal issues that we know of, but he is the one left out in the cold while teams drool over Brown’s return. It’s a bit sick, and further pushes this illusion of, “Well, we’re just trying to win.”
No, you aren’t.
If Kaepernick or Gordon is a “distraction,” then Brown is a dividing barrier in the confines of your organization. A character flaw is not something anyone willingly signs on to, especially in an intimate setting like an NFL locker room? Sure, you don’t have to agree or necessarily like someone to interact or work with them, but integrity is a must. If a person doesn’t have it, it’s done, and so is anything they touch.
We all saw that no Pittsburgh players came to Brown’s defense toward the end of his time with the Steelers. Brown lashed out about the lack of touches he got within the offense, turning many of the guys off.
Raiders players didn’t come to his defense as the aloof Brown continued thrashing at management over the helmet dispute that ballooned into something more. And the public embarrassment he put Jon Gruden through when he publicly exposed a private phone call between him and Gruden on his YouTube page.
We’ve never heard about these types of stories between Gordon and management/ownership.
Good luck to whoever wants to bring the Brown cancer into their locker room. It’s a slap in the face to everyone he has stepped on along the way, including women, who make up 47% of NFL fans. Brown could potentially face additional league discipline for the sexual assault charges, according to Lindsay Jones of The Athletic.
All of these factors and teams are still considering this guy. At this point it’s not like they weren’t warned.