Antonio Brown does a lot of things he shouldn’t do. He also does a lot of things, apparently, that he’s not supposed to do. And by and large, he will likely continue to escape any consequences for them, as has been the theme throughout his career. It was when he finally did receive discipline for his behavior by being benched in Week 17 last season that he decided ‘enough was enough’.
Even since the Pittsburgh Steelers traded him to the Oakland Raiders, he has seemingly gone out of his way to either mock the Steelers or to try to reinforce his reasonings behind leaving. He criticized the organization for essentially not being as family-oriented as is claimed, and for Ben Roethlisberger for having only been to his house once. So he took a camera with him to pop into Derek Carr’s house.
Special delivery @derekcarrqb 😁🤗☠️ @Raiders pic.twitter.com/4WnfAxWmJo
— Antonio Brown (@AB84) March 13, 2019
Brown criticized owner Art Rooney II and the rest of the organization by implicating them in essentially not showing interest in him as a person or about his family. This is in spite of the fact that virtually every other player has reported a different type of experience.
So in his introductory press conference with the Raiders, he had this to say about his new team: “it’s all about family and making sure the family’s in the right environment. Coach Gruden has been nothing but family, welcoming my family and even acknowledging and knowing my family just speaks tremendous volumes of what type of person he is outside the business. When you have a guy who knows your family, who shares that type of love for you, you’re gonna put your heart on the line for him to give him whatever it takes for us to be in a great situation because now he’s my family”.
Way to really lay it on thick, there, Antonio. I’m still not certain if his intention in these remarks is to poke fun or to continue to try to make it seem as though he really had a point about the Steelers, despite all reports about their conduct among other players being to the contrary.
Meanwhile, he has continued to display the same sort of entitled behavior that he was known for in Pittsburgh—and even more so in hindsight. He was somewhere between 15 minutes to a half an hour late to his own introductory press conference, for starters.
In addition to that, he was already acting as though he was a Raider before he was a Raider. And his activities at the Raiders’ facilities on Tuesday and Wednesday morning may have been in violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Dave Bryan already talked about one aspect of it, but Mike Mayock inadvertently brought up another:
“Jon had 400 clips of Antonio in the office. I walked in this morning, the two of them were sitting in there like little kids watching 400 cut-ups of Antonio. Everything he did. I mean, they were like little kids in a laboratory”.
Coaches are not even permitted to have this level of access to players who are under contract prior to the start of the new league year, according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Raiders have been in questionable territory since they so quickly hired Jon Gruden last year though, and continued to do so with the signing of Trent Brown literally within minutes of the tampering window opening on Monday. But chances are nothing will come of any of it.
