While it’s always fun to pile on the Raiders, no one expected the AB saga to go this badly.
In one of the most selfish moves ever pulled by an NFL athlete, Antonio Brown orchestrated a tantrum laced spectacle out of Oakland. Now that the curtains have been pulled back, it’s clearer than ever that the Raiders were nothing more than a pawn in AB’s self promotional game. From the the minute Brown was signed, the speculation was that it was a relationship heading towards disaster. In retrospect, we should have all listened to Ryan Clark. The longtime Steeler made it clear from the start how terrible Antonio Brown is as a human:
Look I’ll spare you the bullshit, this isn’t about loyalty or any other “raw-raw” sports moralities. The Oakland Raiders shouldn’t be too concerned about loyalty since they’ve decided to leave Oakland for a second time. My issue is absolutely related to how fake Antonio Brown is. From the moment it was announced he was going to be a Raider, AB randomly shows up to Derek Carr’s house with a full camera crew. This awkward bromance video was shot, highly produced and posted with the intent of making him look like a “good guy”. It’s an awkward video and much like everything in AB’s life it’s broadcasted for everyone to see. I felt for Derek Carr here, nothing in this video felt natural, even if Antonio Brown tried so desperately hard to make it seem like him and Derek were long lost brothers.
The highlight of this super fake bromance video:
You good bro?
I’m good bro you good bro?
Bro I’m good
Good bro
Cue Saturday September 7th, we are now living in the upside down world. AB is released, signs with the Patriots (who didn’t see this coming) and according to his scumbag agent Drew Rosenhaus there were chemistry issues from the start. Which is a complete lie. Even through the helmet controversy and the frozen feet, the Oakland Raiders were very supportive of Antonio Brown. The plane came crashing down the minute they fucked with his money. If there’s anything we know about AB, nothing is more important to him and than money..
February 12th: Antonio Brown Publicly Demands Steelers to Trade Him.
Big Ben and AB get into it. AB misses practice like a whiny five year old who just got his ice cream sandwich taken away. Mike Tomlin benches AB in week 17 (as if Tomlin had a choice). Then of course in typical Antonio Brown fashion he takes to twitter to air his grievances.
March 1st: Antonio Brown goes full yellow moustache on The Barbershop
The yellow moustache will forever define AB’s insanity. Looking back, it was a cry for help… and for attention. AB decided to take his grievances and stupid moustache to Lebron’s Barbershop. Not only does he insist he’s not a distraction while complaining on a highly produced HBO show, he call’s out the Steelers management for having an “owner’s mentality”. Once again it’s everyone else’s fault. Who could blame the Steelers for not wanting to give this dude more money and power? This asshole even had problems with Dick LeBeau!
March 9: Raiders make a huge fucking mistake.
Quite possibly the worst transaction ever. The Oakland Raiders decide to trade for Antonio Brown. At the time a 3rd and 5th rounder for an Elite receiver sounded like a hell of a bargain. I mean, even with all the drama surrounding AB can you really blame the Raiders for wanting to give Derek Carr more help? Now only a few months later, this trade seems to be the worst move in NFL history. Let’s just consider for a second that the Raiders FUCKING TRADED Khalil Mack. To add insult to injury, they essentially rented Antonio Brown for an offseason of headaches only to see him bolt before playing a single game.
April 7: AB shits on JuJu Smith-Shuster
This is further proof that Antonio Brown is an absolute prick. The Steelers name JuJu their most valuable player of 2018.. anddd of course AB isn’t happy because he is no longer in the spotlight. AB then decides to tweet (of course) his frustrations in an act of pure jealousy. How can anyone have an issue with JuJu?! The dude is one of the chillest players in the league. Check out this bullshit:
April 25: Twitter War with Ryan Clark
Ryan Clark is my dude. Now that the dust has settled, it’s clearer than ever that he was the Nostradamus of this whole ridiculous situation. In many interviews on ESPN Clark repeatedly warned the Raiders about the extreme selfishness of Antonio Brown. Things especially blew over when Ryan Clark called AB “just not a good human”. At the time it was harsh, but now I couldn’t agree more. Antonio again (of course x100) takes to twitter to threaten Clark.
July 26: The Hot Air Balloon
It’s obvious that AB chose this method of travel to garner the maximum amount of attention. Let’s break this down, what’s more outlandish than arriving to camp in a FUCKING HOT AIR BALLOON? Helicopter? Nope. Private Jet? Nope. Parachute? Already been done. As with everything else in this timeline, it is clear as day that his only intention was to draw attention to himself. It’s his addiction and as expected the media chewed up this story like it was anymore more than a publicity stunt.
August 2019: The Circumcision of Antonio Brown’s Frostbitten Feet
This is the only part of this saga I feel bad about. While it’s easy to make fun of a guy like Antonio Brown, it’s not every day you hear that a player has frostbitten feet. In the summer. In August. The cause of the frostbite was due to not wearing the appropriate footwear during cryotherapy. As a result he ended up missing most of training camp, which is where the drama escalated.
August 2019: The Helmet Grievance
Whether you believe it was a marketing ploy or not, Antonio Brown absolutely did not want to let go of his Schutt AiR Advantage helmet. The NFL is ever more invested in their players safety and they deemed this helmet to be dangerous. AB flied two grievances against the league which were denied by an arbitrator decides to threaten retirement. Meanwhile the Raiders continued to remain patient and fully supported him throughout this whole debacle.
Antonio Brown’s helmet grievance led to the receiver missing the majority of OTAs and contributed to the wide disconnect with his teammates. As widely reported by Micheal Silver this issue was widely regarded as a complete insanity. In the end Antonio Brown ends up moving on … and in a completely planned stunt finally decides to announce that he partnered with Xenith. I personally wonder why it took Antonio Brown this long to select a helmet. As a biased Raiders fan, I want to believe that the news coverage surrounding his helmet selection would only give him more of what he craves: Attention. Not to mention, it’s a great publicity stunt for Xenith. They must have loved this extended exposure.
September 5: AB calls Mike Mayock a cracker or Mayonnaise Boy or both. Gets suspended.
It’s not every day you hear of a star NFL player threatening to fight his boss and GM. I feel for Mike Mayock, part of me feels like he’s basically been a meat shield for John Gruden. John gets to play the good cop and Mayock has to come out and be the hard ass. I actually like Mayock, I know this whole situation happened on his watch, but I really do like his no bullshit approach with Antonio Brown. Someone had to put their foot down and by fining AB they would not let this circus continue. So here it is, during a practice (that AB actually DID decide to show up to), he gets into a heated exchange with Mayock, calls him a cracker and as you’d expect.. he gets suspended. The best part about this exchange is that AB apparently also called Mayock “Mayonnaise Boy”, not only is this the best insult ever, it really adds the cherry to the shit sunday. What makes this batshit situation even weirder is that VONTAZE BURFICT HAD TO HOLD HIM BACK… VONTAZE BURFICT. His mortal fucking enemy. How the Raiders ever thought that relationship could ever co-exist, I don’t know.
Mayock decided to fine AB 54,000$. Antonio took to instagram like a spoiled child (of course, of course, of course), posted a picture of the fine with a caption stating “WHEN YOUR OWN TEAM WANT TO HATE BUT THERE IS NO STOPPING ME NOW THE DEVIL IS A LIE. EVERYONE GOT TO PAY THIS YEAR SO WE CLEAR”. Maybe in retrospect the fines seemed excessive. But I’m not sure what he expected, these were the terms of his contract and he chose to skip out on OTAs, team meetings, walkthroughs and practices. Maybe he expected to be treated completely different from the rest of his team. Or maybe he saw this coming and saw a way out.
September 6: Raider un-suspend Antonio Brown. Declare that he will play.
The strangest aspect of this saga was the epic twists and turns that seemed to manifest on a daily basis. The day before, Mayock decides to suspend AB, the next day AB comes out and apologize to his teammates.. promptly gets un-suspended (never heard of that before). There’s a pretty strong chance that apology wasn’t authentic, while it was a good move in the moment it also served AB to look like the good guy. Antonio Brown has always needs a villain, the sort of chip on his shoulder that has propelled him into football lore. In Pittsburgh, the villains were Big Ben, the Ownership & Dick LeBeau… In Oakland, he didn’t have a villain so he created a mess for Mike Mayock to clean up. Mayock is as old school as it gets and AB knew that with enough problems we could fabricate exactly what his scenario needed: A bad guy, a cracker… A mayonnaise boy.
September 7: Raiders FINALLY release Antonio Brown
At this point everyone in the Raiders organization and every fan was clamouring for management to cut their losses and move on from this failed experiment. Antonio Brown had created so many distractions that completely hampered the entire organization. As you’d expect in this crazy saga, within 24 hours everything changed. AB was no longer suspended or un-suspended, he was let go.
AB was clearly furious that the organization decided to fine him upwards of 200k and with these fines led to his guaranteed money being voided. I honestly think it was a boss move by Mayock, Antonio Brown essentially paid the Raiders 300,000$ to be a clown during the offseason.
I’ve been asked a few times, “What do you think was the final nail in the coffin” and I can not look any further than this highly produced hit piece on the Raiders Organization. This will forever be the final part of the Antonio Brown Raiders saga, a wonderfully produced narcissistic video begging the public to take his side… after all he is the good guy and he finally found his villian: