In his illustrious gridiron career, nobody could ever outwork former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown.
That work ethic drove him to greatness, unlocked levels never before seen at the receiver position in Pittsburgh and put Brown on a Hall of Fame trajectory. He put together a five-year span that could be considered the greatest the game has ever seen from a receiver, outside of maybe Jerry Rice.
That work ethic and determination might have also led to his downfall, at least in Pittsburgh, according to former Steelers long snapper Kameron Canaday.
Canaday, who was the long snapper for the Steelers from 2017 through 2020, spent two seasons with Brown and saw the hard work and determination on display daily, whether it was during OTAs, minicamp, training camp or even practices during the season. He was always working hard on his craft, busting his butt.
But in Canaday’s estimation, Brown seeing former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger taking maintenance days off in 2017 and 2018 and missing practices led to the rift that ultimately saw Brown blow up on Roethlisberger during a practice, storm off, miss the regular-season finale and ultimately get traded to the then-Oakland Raiders.
“…When guys were like trying to work their absolute ass off to make the team, and he’s still blowing everybody outta the water, still outworking them…the guy had a motor, he didn’t slow down. And he was like that for 16 weeks. And I think that’s probably why him and Ben probably got into it a little bit,” Canaday said of Brown and Roethlisberger during an appearance on a podcast with Cameron Hanes on YouTube. “Because, you know, Ben had his two Super Bowls. And he got banged up and Ben would sit out a little bit. He liked to just take it easy ’til Sunday, you know. He kinda earned it, but when Antonio Brown was running routes for the second and third stringers and then he’s not getting that connection on Sundays, yeah, he’s gonna start freaking out.
“That’s kind of what he did. Which I don’t blame him, because he’s got that Michael Jordan mindset.”
That Michael Jordan mindset is one who has a killer instinct, one who takes every slight personally, and one who works his tail off to be great. That’s what Brown had. It’s what made him so successful, especially in the Black and Gold.
That five-year run with Brown and Roethlisberger putting up astronomical numbers was rather incredible. There was nobody better than Brown, and Roethlisberger was right up there at the quarterback position as well.
But they were at different points in their careers. Roethlisberger was aging and constantly banged up, so he needed the maintenance days just to get to game day, which was most important for not only the Steelers but Roethlisberger, too.
It’s understandable that those maintenance days and the different treatment for Roethlisberger might have ruffled Brown’s feathers a bit. As head coach Mike Tomlin likes to say: treated fairly but not the same.
So, being out there every day, running routes for second and third stringers at quarterback, like Canaday pointed out, could have certainly frustrated Brown, and then carried over into game day, where he might not have been seeing the ball come his way at times.
That continued to build up until the dam burst, leading to an ugly separation and now an estranged relationship between player and franchise.
One year later, Roethlisberger was out for the season because of torn ligaments in his elbow, something he was reportedly nursing in previous years, leading to the days off.
Check out the full interview with Kam Canaday below.
