Bucs’ Antonio Brown: From troubles to a place in the Super Bowl
By Art Spander
It’s all about production in sports.
There are exceptions, individuals or organizations with a genuine concern about civility and morality. Yet the issue rarely is what the athlete has done away from the field — his troubles in society — but what he is able to do on the field.
There was a wonderfully skilled receiver on the Oakland Raiders in the late 1960s, Warren Wells, who could catch anything. Unfortunately the law caught up with him, and he was arrested just before a huge game in Oakland.
For Raiders owner Al Davis — “Just win, baby” — the problem was less why Wells had been jailed than it was getting him back in the lineup for that Sunday.
It is ironic that receiver Antonio Brown, scheduled to play for Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV on Sunday, once was also with the Raiders, if very briefly, a few days in the summer of 2019.
Then he was with New England. Then he was suspended eight weeks for multiple violations of the NFL’s personal conduct policy (burglary and sexual misconduct).
Then in October 2020, partly on the recommendation of Tom Brady, who for a few days was a teammate on the Patriots, Brown was signed by the Buccaneers and now is to play in the most important game of the year.
Hey, it never hurts a quarterback to have another guy who can run routes. Besides, as you’ve heard before, everyone deserves a second chance. Or for Brown is it a third or fourth one?
Brown was great with the Steelers for several years. He was unable to reach an agreement for a new contract, and everything turned nasty, not the least of which was Brown’s disposition.
Which didn’t affect the way Brady judged him.
“Certainly I’m happy for Antonio to get an opportunity to resume his career,” Brady said in a Westwood One radio interview, Oct. 26, 2020, when Brown joined the quarterback on the Bucs. “He’s put a lot of time and energy into working on a lot of things in his life.”
Including the restraints placed on him by the NFL. Brown is on probation for two years, must undergo a psychological evaluation, provide 100 hours of community service and attend an anger management course.
In a Super Bowl interview session via Zoom on Wednesday, Brown was asked about the legal woes, which also included being sued for hurling furniture off a 14th-floor balcony and nearly striking a 22-month-old and grandfather walking below. His answer was really no answer at all.
“I’m just extremely grateful to be here,” said Brown, evoking memories of Marshawn Lynch (“I’m only here so I won’t get fined”) before Super Bowl XLIX in 2015.
Lynch was repetitive, offering the line repeatedly for five minutes. Brown was evasive.
“It’s a blessing to be here,” said Brown. “Super grateful. I’d be doing a disservice if I talked about things that are not the focus of the game.”
Sort of a variation on a theme by Brady’s former boss at New England, Bill Belichick, who following a rare loss talked only about the next game on the Patriots’ schedule. “On to Cincinnati,” was the memorable Belichick observation.
For Brown, it’s on to a world where the points on the scoreboard are almost all that matters, to him and those around him.
“I’ve been through some things, but that’s life,” Brown said. “We all have a story. We all have to allow ourselves to grow for the betterment of ourselves. I’m just grateful for the journey.
“I want my legacy to be a guy that was persistent, a guy that never gave up, no matter the odds, no matter the hate.”
Persistence counts. Production counts more. As we were reminded by the treatment of Warren Wells. And Antonio Brown.