It was the disrobing seen ’round the world.
On Sunday afternoon, Antonio Brown and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were playing the Jets at Met Life Stadium. The Jets were winning in the middle of the third quarter when AB finally gave us all what we knew would eventually happen.
A selfish moment that embarrassed his team and teammates.
It’s something he’s done with every team he’s been with during his incredible, yet now forever marred NFL career.
And while his live disrobing was shocking, his motives and antics were not.
Antonio Brown built an NFL career that was Hall of Famer worthy, capped off by his first Super Bowl victory last season with the Bucs.
But with his NFL career lives an off-field career that has now, unfortunately, overshadowed the former sixth-round draft pick’s highly successful on-field accomplishments.
And he has no one to blame but himself.
Many, like Tom Brady, have come to Brown’s defense. That’s understandable.
Does he have mental health issues? Does he have CTE?
Maybe to the former. Currently, the ability to diagnose the latter in living players doesn’t exist.
Regardless, Brown’s behavior should not be excused or rationalized due to either.
Instead, Brown should be held accountable for one of the most embarrassing and childish displays of behavior in NFL history, especially since it’s not the first time that he’s humiliated an organization.
Brown is an opportunist with a penchant for scapegoating, conflict and embarrassment. And that pattern of behavior destroys the sympathy for any “suffering” his defenders want to employ.
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