Have we ever seen an athlete be his own worst enemy quite like Antonio Brown has over the last couple of months?
He was inarguably one of the best wide receivers in the game a year ago and now the league doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore given his antics during his short tenure for the Oakland Raiders and the sexual assault and rape allegations against him right after he signed with the New England Patriots.
And Antonio Brown’s career now is likely over because of his own self-destruction.
Sometimes you just want to shake people and scream at them “Get out of your own way!” – especially if your friends with said person. It’s your responsibility as a friend to have this approach.
Antonio Brown is one of those people but on a national scale when you consider his nearly immeasurable talent as one of the most gifted wide receivers in NFL history. All you can do is mutter to yourself, “Well, that’s a shame.”
It could be CTE or it could be “The Scorpion and the Frog” fable, which is basically about a scorpion who hitches a ride on a frog across a river promising not to kill it, but then the scorpion does it anyway. The moral of the fable is vicious people cannot help hurting others. It’s instinctual and inherent within them.
It’s just in Brown’s DNA.
The New England Patriots released Brown after he sent “intimidating” text messages to a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her two years ago in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Another woman, Britney Taylor, an Olympic gymnast and trainer to Brown, accused him of raping her in a civil lawsuit.
Brown hasn’t played since Week One and it’s not because a team doesn’t want to sign him. There are a lot of desperate teams vying for a playoff push that would roll the dice on a non-guarantee contract, but the NFL is still investigating Brown’s off-the-field antics.
But Brown ruined all of that when he was scheduled to meet with the NFL about reinstating him off the commissioner’s exempt list.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, he wrote in a now-deleted tweet his own demise.
He wrote on Thursday, “Imagine conforming to a system giving it a 100 percent to see them treat me like this is unfairly ! Making money off my sweat and blood F—k the @nfl I’ll never play in that sh-t treat black people the worse! Clear my name and go f—k your self”
Now the league is racist? He is aware that the league is 75% people of color, right?
Brown’s ineffectual ranting tirade is not surprising.
What is surprising is how he followed it up with a tweet saying, “I’m just very frustrated right now with the false allegations and slander to my name. I love football and I miss it. I just want to play and I’m very emotional about that. I’m determined to make my way back to the NFL asap”
I’m just very frustrated right now with the false allegations and slander to my name. I love football and I miss it. I just want to play and I’m very emotional about that. I’m determined to make my way back to the NFL asap
— AB (@AB84) November 7, 2019
Everyone gets frustrated. Everyone has a blow up every now and again.
But when it happens over and over, time after time, again and again, it’s not an isolated incident; it’s a pattern.
Brown is one of the most reckless volatile athletes in professional sports right now.
You’d have to be delusional thinking he would act any differently than he has over the last few months.