Antonio Brown, arguably the best wide-receiver in the NFL talent-wise, was traded to the Oakland Raiders in March after a long career of nine seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Raiders agreed to trade a 2019 third-round pick and a 2019 fifth-round pick to the Steelers in exchange for Brown. Although the Raiders won the trade in terms of gaining more talent, the Steelers definitely took a step in the right direction by trading Brown.
Brown, in recent seasons, has had a history of gaining social media attention and attention in general through making poor decisions. The first main incident happened when the former Steeler videotaped himself, his teammates and Head Coach Mike Tomlin in the locker room after their AFC Divisional round victory that sent them to Gillette Stadium to face the New England Patriots. This was done completely intentionally by Brown and he made himself and his whole team look arrogant.
The video blew up on social media, painting the Steelers in a negative light and giving the Patriots even more motivation to beat the Steelers in the AFC Championship game. The Patriots ended up winning the game in a blowout by a score of 36-17. If Antonio Brown had not recorded that video on Facebook Live, the Steelers vs. Patriots championship game might have been a whole lot different, and Brown’s reputation would not have been diminished like it was.
The video caused a distraction for the Steelers in the week leading to the game against the Patriots and it all resulted from the decision made by one player.
After that incident finally had boiled down and another season had gone by, the Steelers 2018-2019 offseason started with a shock after Brown was traded to the Raiders.
Shortly after the trade was announced, Steelers wide-receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster tweeted a photo of himself catching a pass against the Raiders and included the quote, “I’m ready” — Brown just happened to be in the background of the picture, too. Even though this does explain Brown’s beef with Smith-Schuster, it is no excuse for Brown’s childish behavior — no professional athlete should be behaving like this if they want to be considered “one of the best” or “the best.”
After that tweet from Smith-Schuster that evoked frustration and jealousy from Brown, Brown shared an old direct message in which Smith-Schuster showed respect and admiration for Brown by reaching out to him in hopes of learning how to be a professional. Brown obviously wanted to make himself feel superior and expose Smith-Schuster’s early admirations; however, the post actually made Brown look like an even bigger jerk.
First off, the message violates Smith-Schuster’s privacy. Second, it actually is noteworthy that Smith-Schuster had the courage to reach out to Brown in the first place to try to gain some insight on how to be a professional. Brown later deleted the post, likely after realizing it was something he should not have posted and because he quickly ended up publicly embarrassing himself.
Smith-Schuster has been open about his respect for Brown and even tweeted saying, “All I ever did was show that man love and respect from the moment I got to the league.”
Brown has already been a distraction as a member of the Oakland Raiders organization, yet the 2019-2020 season hasn’t even started — there are still four and a half months until the regular season begins.
It will be interesting to see how Brown contributes to the Raiders offense under a new quarterback and a new coach. Derek Carr has not been as strong of a quarterback as Ben Roethlisberger, but maybe having Brown on the team will change that. It will also be fascinating to see how much or how little drama Brown causes while he is on the Raiders.
Matt Olszewski, a Sports Editor for the Voice, can be reached for comment at MOlszewski21@wooster.edu.