If you haven’t had a chance to read the article by ESPN reporter Jeremy Fowler about former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown, I highly recommend it. Fowler’s connections with the team afforded him a great deal of inside information on the tumultuous relationship between Brown and the Steelers.
The one area that really caught my eye that I wanted to share here was about Brown’s trade to the Oakland Raiders and how his former teammates felt it would work.
WITH DEBTS AND legal issues piling up, Brown’s three-year, $54 million deal with the Raiders ($30 million of it guaranteed) could have eased at least the financial hole in which he found himself. But when Brown signed that deal in March, some Steelers privately debated how long Brown would last without the generous concessions Tomlin made for the receiver.
The consensus was that Brown wouldn’t make it to Week 1 — and that turned out to be right.
This was the one area many fans and writers talked about during this entire process. There was no denying head coach Mike Tomlin offered huge concessions to Brown that wasn’t afforded to the rest of the players and we all wondered if Brown would be able to function in a world without them. And of course, he couldn’t.
I would even be willing to go out on a limb and say this, and not the pending legal issues or even the erratic behavior on social media that is keeping him unemployed. After orchestrating his release from the Raiders, the New England Patriots were fools to think he’d do the right thing with them. Every team in the NFL has to look at this entire situation and wonder if the talent Brown brings to the field is worth all the headaches. And so far, the answer to that has been no.
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