Former NFL All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown has been very publicly going through the seven stages of grief over the past few months. The public part of it is no surprise. Brown tends to do most things very publicly whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent. Now he’s making a bunch of public apologies.
The most recent being to Ben Roethlisberger who threw him the ball in Pittsburgh for so many years and who Brown very bitterly split with at the end of the 2018 season.
“I never realized how good I had it, got caught up in my emotion with everyone coming after me,” Brown said in his Instagram post to Roethlisberger. “I really apologize for my actions sincerely man! It’s never been another connection like what we done in the past decade. I appreciate you. Sincerely AB.”
This comes after he had apologized to the Hollywood Florida police department for cursing them out for answering a domestic dispute call from a fight between Brown and his girlfriend in front of their two children.
Brown and his trainer were both also later was charged assault on a moving truck driver who was delivering him his own stuff. And this wasn’t ancient history. The assault was just last month.
Tuesday Brown appeared on a podcast in which he said he has a lot of regrets. The incident with his girlfriend was chief among them.
These displays of regret and apologies from AB fall into the fourth stage of grief. The “depression, reflection, and loneliness” stage. What you hope for Brown is that he will be onto the next stage which is “the upward turn”. But before you get your hopes too high, you need to look at his past behavior and his current speech.
First, we go back to his past behavior. Most notably, near the end of his short stint with the Raiders in the 2019 offseason.
Brown missed essentially the entirety of training camp. He turned up in one series of one-on-ones if only to tease everyone and prove that if he really wanted to be on the field, he could. He just didn’t want to be. Why? Well, they tried telling everyone it was because of some strange, mysterious foot ailment from a fluke cryogenic chamber accident.
Brown returned to camp once he was supposedly ready from the foot ailment, and appeared in front of the media, along with his agent Drew Rosenhaus to assure everyone that his injury was quite severe and that he had REALLY wanted to be out there, but couldn’t.
At any rate, he was back, so all’s well that ends well. Brown was back and Derek Carr and Jon Gruden were stoked about it. Then the VERY NEXT DAY Brown was gone again.
You see, later in the day after Brown had returned to participate in walk-thrus, the NFL announced they were still not going to let him wear his old helmet. So, Brown either threw another tantrum or had a fresh excuse to not show up to camp.
Mike Mayock was not pleased about it. He was certainly not alone. I’m sure Gruden was not happy about it either. But Gruden had to try and stay the good guy in the hopes Brown would return and it’s Mayock’s job to speak on such things, so he did.
“You all know that AB is not here today,” said Mayock. “So, here is the bottom line; he’s upset about the helmet issue. We have supported that, we appreciate that. But we’ve at this point we’ve pretty much exhausted all avenues of relief. So, from our perspective, it’s time for him to be all in or all out. So, we’re hoping he’s back soon. We’ve got 89 guys busting their tails. We’re really excited about where this franchise is going and we hope AB is going to be a big part of it starting week one against Denver. End of story.”
The Raiders broke camp the next day.
Brown would eventually make his return while the team was back practicing in Alameda preparing for the regular season. And Brown would again take to the podium to apologize to the team and the fans.
“I’m excited to be out here today,” said Brown. “I apologized to my teammates and the organization. Enough talk, man. I’m excited to be out here with my teammates. I’m grateful for all the fans. I’m excited to be a part of the Raiders and see you guys soon.”
That was September 6.
Later that SAME DAY Brown put out a video in which he had a recorded phone conversation with Jon Gruden of which Gruden wasn’t aware that conversation had been recorded and didn’t offer Brown permission to use it.
The Raiders summarily punished Brown with fines for his missed camp days, and the result of the punishment stripped the guarantees out of Brown’s contract.
Once again, THE VERY NEXT DAY after his apology, Brown demanded his release from the team. The Raiders obliged and his time in Oakland was done.
So, in the span of three weeks’ time, Brown had expressed remorse for his actions to the team and within hours of doing so, his mood swung to a complete 180.
Brown signed with the Patriots and that lasted two weeks with one game appearance before multiple sexual assault allegations popped up that had the Patriots rid themselves of him.
The months that followed saw Brown experience shock and denial, maybe some pain and guilt, but mostly anger and bargaining. Mostly he has just blamed everyone but himself.
Even amongst these recent apologies, he still says he fired his agent Drew Rosenhaus and that Rosenhaus would come crawling back anytime he asked him, that everyone is out to get him, and the closest he comes to admitting wrongdoing is in the abstract copout “I haven’t been perfect” while still going with the victim card that everything he does is “magnified times ten” just because it’s him doing it. That’s quite the ironic statement for someone with his social media presence.
Really, the most honest thing he’s said is that he’s running out of time. It seemed to have finally occurred to him that you can’t get back time. He’ll turn 32 in July. He’s desperate now to get back in the NFL before it’s too late. But the NFL is showing no sense of desperation to have him. He will say anything he has to in order to convince a team to give him another shot.
The problem is the NFL has seen his mood swings. From turning on the QB with whom he was named All-Pro four times in favor of what seemed like a full-on football love affair with Derek Carr, to spurning him and the Raiders and making a spectacle of how happy he was when they released him so he could sign with the Patriots, to being dumped by the Patriots and still claiming to this day they owe him $9 million despite appearing in just one game.
He says things like that he will “commit to be the difference” on any team interested in him while talking mostly about his stats and the money he will make.
Apologies are great. Good for him. These people deserve apologies for his actions. But it’s important to not be fooled into thinking he is suddenly a changed man. At very least he’s still got a few more stages of grief to go through. Reconstruction and working through and ultimately acceptance and hope. Getting there is no sure thing. If these past experiences have taught us anything it’s that these stages are no straight-line process for Brown.
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