Now there's Antonio Brown. Brown is an NFL wide receiver, a very good one. But he's had major mental health issues, and accusations of crimes including rape, and he's been with several teams, performing well on the field, but having problems off the field.
Of course, he'd have been gone long before from the league, but damn, he can catch the ball!
I think that if a team is going to sign him, then they need to help him with his mental health. Tom Brady pushed the Bucs to sign him, and classed himself as his friend. But of course, Brady didn't stand up for him when he was seen last Sunday taking off his Jersey and Bucs regalia, throwing them into the stands and leaving the field.
Now, people with jobs often get mad and quit, but understanding bosses will take them back. Not with the Bucs! They tried to say that Brown melted down, and it was all his fault. Well, maybe not:
The union needs to be involved. We need to know what REALLY transpired on the field.The Buccaneers have not released Brown. The team has been in discussions with the NFL this week about procedural steps and the designation that the Buccaneers potentially will use for him, according to a person familiar with the deliberations. The NFL Players Association also has been involved, according to another person with knowledge of the discussions. Brown reportedly was not on hand for the Buccaneers’ practice Wednesday.
“First they cut me. Now they cage me,” Brown said. “Instead of asking how I felt or getting to the bottom of it, the team texted my camp promoting a totally false narrative that I randomly acted out without any explanation. They even told us in writing ‘don’t spin this’ any other way. I have stress, I have things I need to work on. But the worst part of this has been the Bucs’ repeated effort to portray this as a random outburst. They are telling people that first I walked off, then I was cut. No. No. No. I was cut first and then I went home. They threw me out like an animal and I refused to wear their brand on my body, so I took my jersey off.”
Brown tossed aside his jersey and shoulder pads on the Buccaneers’ sideline. He threw pieces of equipment into the stands before walking along the sideline to an end zone and then heading off the field through a tunnel. Fellow Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans was seen speaking to Brown on the sideline.
Brown was playing his second game for the Buccaneers since serving a three-game suspension imposed by the NFL for misrepresenting his vaccination status. Brown submitted a fake vaccination card but subsequently was legitimately vaccinated, a person familiar with the findings of the NFL’s review of that matter said at the time. He has a long history of off-field incidents spanning his tenures with several teams and signed with the Buccaneers last season as he completed an eight-game suspension by the league for violating the personal conduct policy.
“I make mistakes,” Brown said in Wednesday’s statement, his first public comments on Sunday’s incident. “I’m working on myself and I have positive influences around me. But one thing I don’t do is shy away from playing hard on the field. No one can accuse me of not giving it my all every play.”
Brown said he “relented to pressure directly from my coach to play injured” and received “what I now know was a powerful and sometimes dangerous painkiller that the NFLPA has warned against using.” He said Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht “acknowledged after the game in text messages to my camp that I did tell coach about my ankle pain on Sunday.”
Trailing the Jets at the time “was frustrating for all of us,” Brown said, but he added that the “trigger” to his reaction “was someone telling me that I’m not allowed to feel pain. I acknowledge my past. But my past does not make me a second class citizen. My past does not forfeit my right to be heard when I am in pain.”
Brown said he underwent an MRI exam Monday in New York that showed bone fragments in his ankle, a ligament “torn from the bone” and cartilage loss. He said he is scheduled to undergo surgery and is “looking forward to next season.” According to Brown, the Buccaneers “ordered” him “under penalty of discipline and with a few hours’ notice” to receive another medical opinion.
“What a joke,” Brown said. “They’re playing like I wasn’t cut, giving me a surprise attack ‘order’ to show up to another doctor with no reasonable notice, and setting this whole thing up as a basis to cut me because what they did on Sunday was not legitimate. Sorry, GM. I already received a confirming opinion from the Top Doc at the hospital you ‘ordered’ me to go to.”
