Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown has more than proven over the course of the last several years that late-round draft picks can become stars in the NFL. The fact that he came out of a small college program makes his accomplishments even more inspirational to future NFL players.
Thursday night, Brown had Snapchat session with his fans and during it he posted an old draft scouting report from 2010 that someone had written about him and a Twitter user has since made it public on their account.
In that report, the writer made it a point to question Brown’s work ethic and character and went as far as to say he had a “prima donna attitude” while in college at Central Michigan. The writer did, however, note that Brown had “run-after-catch ability” in addition to “return skills” and was definitely right with that assessment.
In defense of the writer, I’m not sure anybody predicted that Brown would become the player that he is now and that just goes to show how hard he’s worked over the years. If you think back, the 2011 offseason was a big one for Brown as it relates to him having a huge opportunity to develop. That year, Brown received a lot of extra practice time with the Steelers first-team offense due to wide receivers Hines Ward and Emmanuel Sanders both missing quite a bit of time with thumb and foot injuries respectively.
Brown didn’t let that opportunity slide through his fingers as he went on to register 69 catches in 2011 for 1,108 yards and 2 touchdowns. As a result of that huge jump in his game, Brown signed a five year, $41.7 million contract extension the following offseason.
You will be hard-pressed to find a player in the NFL that works harder than Brown does. Even though he was drafted by the Steelers in the sixth-round, he managed to become one of the best wide receivers in the game today and could very well wind up being the best to ever play the position in Pittsburgh.
