The Antonio Brown saga just keeps building, and every time you think it’s slowing down he adds another brick to what has become an extremely dramatic wall. The star wide receiver had a very public falling out with the Pittsburgh Steelers after becoming an elite ball-catcher during his nine-year tenure with the team.
It happens. Players and teams don’t always have an admirable breakup, but AB’s was much worse than that.
Brown then took aim at his former teammates, with rising star and AB-replacement Juju Smith-Schuster, as well as longtime quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, finding themselves in the crosshairs. Whether there was any merit to AB’s claims is up to interpretation, but it’s fairly widely considered to be a pretty bad look for Brown.
After essentially forcing the Steelers hand and getting traded to Oakland (after a refusal to play with original trade partner Buffalo), the drama only deepened. While shots against the Steelers were still coming in, Brown also took up a feud with the NFL for their move to ban certain helmets in order to enhance player safety. Brown lost two grievances and will just have to deal with the NFL-approved helmets, but now he’s taking a new direction with his ire – his own team, the Oakland Raiders.
Brown has been a wild card during the lead-up to training camp, missing team activities and receiving fines as a result. The latest fine to come in may have rubbed Brown the wrong way, and when he received the notice he took to Instagram to let everyone know what he thought.
Brown continues to turn the hair gray of Raiders fans, and fantasy owners as well, as it seems increasingly unlikely that he’ll be able to manage a 16-game season drama-free with no self-induced obstacles.
…We’ll keep you updated.
