Antonio Brown Mega Thread (Was: AB is upset he's being fined by the Raiders

That's the way I read it as well and if that's true, they almost have to do that to put the ball back in their own court.

 

I'm not sure either but I wish I had some

 

Did you just call someone an idiot?

 

There is no I in team; however, there are 2 I's in idiot.

 

It's interesting how some people see this travesty within the Raiders absolving Tomlin and the Steelers.

In my opinion, this points a very ugly finger at Tomlin and the Steelers. Tomlin and the Steelers raised the little brat from childhood, Tomlin and the Steelers coddled the little brat from childhood, Tomlin and the Steelers turned the little brat into a world class brat, and because he is now acting like a world class brat for another team that somehow absolves Tomlin and the Steelers?

AB is a product of his environment just like every other child on the planet.

AB's entire adult life has been with the Steelers and look at him now.

The Raiders have already done more to stand up to the brat than the Steelers ever did.

The Steelers are just wizards at keeping their dirty laundry in house. Good thing because they became a dirty laundry factory over the past 3-5 years.

Let's hope the Steelers have seen the light and the Raiders cut the little brat!

 

Based on Rosenhaus' comments and the fact that the Raiders have yet to suspend AB, I would guess that they are involved in trying to sort out a negotiated settlement. Something where AB is let go but get's some portion of the guaranteed money. The Raiders could just say "Screw you, AB", but there's some risk there. First, this thing could drag out for a long time since AB and Rosenhaus would then surely file a grievance. Also, the CBA has an uniformity clause in it and if any other Raider players had unexcused missed practices or similar transgressions to AB but not similarly punished then Rosenhaus could point out that AB is being unfairly punished. In a negotiated settlement the Raiders may be able to ask for some clause that either limits or somehow incentivizes AB to not sign with an AFC West team. I'm not sure if that's allowed by the CBA but it's certainly something I would explore if I were the Raiders.

At this point it's probably best for both parties to part ways as quickly and cleanly as possible.

 

I'll disagree.

This is primarily on AB. He's a grown man. There has to be personal accountability here. There's plenty of current and former Steelers stars that have been coddled also but haven't abused that largesse.

As for the Raiders standing up to him now it is a day late and a dollar short. They should have stood up to him before as most teams did by not wanting him anywhere near the team and not giving him a big new shiny contract. They're going to end up losing two draft picks and probably multi-millions and get nothing in return. For reasons I posted above they might not cut him outright. They'll probably pay him some amount in a negotiated settlement to move on in exchange for not filing a grievance.

 

Ten years from now when NFL Network premieres “AB a Football Life” they will show the rise of a superstar and subsequent fall via his own self-destruction. Then while living on the street someone reaches out to him to offer a compassionate helping hand.... Ben Roethlisberger....

 

I don’t even dislike AB any more, I pity him. I suspect that he has had bonkus of the conkus one too many times. It has affected his personality and actions. I don’t think it’s drugs, players are tested enough that it would have been picked up. All he has to do is smile, say nothing, put forth a reasonable effort at something he is fully capable of doing, and collect his millions, but he just can’t do it. I see this coming to a bad end down the road. The man needs help, badly.

 

I'm new here, so low cred.

When you come into the NFL you're an adult. Steelers didn't raise the "kid". As former players have stated, the AB of today is nothing like the AB of old. B. McFadden said he was always big smiling, low talker, and hard-working. His head got rattled or tainted.

Pleased he's no longer a Steeler. I just hope the offense resembles nothing like that of the Bears. That was hard to stomach. Reminded me of the Mark Malone years.

 

I agree with you that AB is "Special breed of brat" but to absolve Tomlin and the Steelers would be like absolving the parents of the little bastard in the grocery store who throws tantrums and causes damage in the store from the age of 5 through 14, the parent use their money and power to cover it all up but refuse to discipline the little bastard for his entire childhood, and then ship him off to military school and when he becomes a brat at military school and then saying "see it wasn't his parent fault after all".

Think about this; AB's entire adult life has been with the Steelers and while he was a "special moron" the Steelers shaped and molded him into the adult he is today by the way they raised him and treated him. Tomlin and the Steelers are not blameless in the moronic behavior of AB. Had they been more disciplined with him from day one this story wouldn't exist.

 

I'm sorry, a 22 year old who has never had guidance or seen the real world is NOT an adult.

As a parent, if you adopted a kid of 22 years who never had any guidance or real world learning, would you truly treat him as an adult? Give him money and the car keys? Give him money and go away for the weekend leaving him in charge of the house?

 

The child misbehaving analogy fails because he's not a child.

I get your point that the Steelers may have enabled some of this diva behavior, but at the end of the day he's an adult. Ultimately, he's responsible, as all of us are, for our own behavior.

 

It's both. Read my post at the top of page 3 in this thread. Coming out of college AB was already labeled a prima donna with a bad attitude and work ethic concerns. Those things were inherent in AB when the Steelers drafted him. After that, the Steelers did little in the way to change that. I see it as a nature/nurture thing. Nature determines your absolute limits, while nurture determines how closely you get to those limits.
Nature dictated that AB is a prima donna with a bad attitude.
Nurture (the Steelers) allowed him to be the disaster he is today.
Sure the Steelers could have done more to curtail what comes naturally, but in the end AB is who he is and there wouldn't have been much difference if they had tried.

 

Doesn't Steve Young hate Ben? It always seems that way to me when we have a Monday night game.

 

OJ Simpson weighs in. This isn't the first time that he's taken a stab at someone named Brown

 

If the helmet don't fit you act like a twit.

 

Bullshyte. Tell that to the 18-22 year olds patrolling the most obscure sh!tholes across the globe to advance freedom and democracy. Not only does Brown not get a pass but he shoulders the blame and responsibility. Blaming Brown's personality and behavior on the Steelers organization is like kaepernick blaming the NFL for him being a crappy QB.

 

I guess we differ on the definition of an adult. I consider 21-22 year olds fresh out of college, who have never had to accept responsibility for anything a day in their life, undeveloped children regardless of age, strength, or size.


I would consider my 15 year old grandson much more adult than any of those guys and I would be 100% confident that if I left my grandson with $1000 and the my house for the weekend there would be $975 of it left and the house would be intact as it was. Leave one of these undeveloped children with $1,000,000 and the house for the weekend and we all know what would happen.

Very few players are adults when they enter the NFL. Many are still not adults when they leave the NFL.

 

As a veteran, I couldn't agree more about our soldiers! But we aren't talking about soldiers, we're talking about punks who couldn't come close to making it through boot camp!

Edited to add: When I was in boot camp it was amazing to see how the tough street thugs who thought they were king **** were the first to cry for their mommy at night!

Edited to further add: As a veteran, quite frankly, I find it very insulting that you would equate the two! Before any person is given a gun and sent to a foreign land to protect our freedom, they must first go through boot camp where the mentally and physically weak are weeded out, they will then go through specialty training where, again, those deemed unfit for responsibility are weeded out. If you think that our military would simply hand someone like AB a gun and say "go protect us" you are extremely naive and insulting to our military! Sorry for the rant, just a pet peeve of mine.

 

As an employer of an adult fresh out of college or not I expect him or her to do their job and not mess with my company. I don't care about what you did or didn't learn on the life tree. This company or any other don't adopt adults and pay them money to be their daddy. This isn't adult day care.

 

I'll say this.... if the Raiders do actually have some sort of suspension or 'out' on guaranteed money... and exercise those options..... Mike Mayock and Gruden will gain a little of my respect..... takes some big balls to make those decisions. But that being said..... if one of my employees got that way with me..... without question, they would be gone in a heart beat.

 

They won't do it. They want that WR#1 play so bad they're going to try to deflect and contain.

 

So, let me get this right? You don't place any value on upbringing, and are perfectly willing to forego any vetting process for your company, and would give equal responsibility to anyone simply based on age?

Prim a-donna athletes coming out of college are NOT adults. So maybe you an call it "older-child day care".

 

So the Steelers brass didn't coddle AB?

Was he EVER suspended for his antics as a Steelers? When he didn't show up for practice in that last game and showed up at game time, didn't they dock him his pay for that game? NO!

The Steelers didn't want to rock the boat w one of their best players...that is what it was.

Steelers didn't address his antics anything like the Raiders did(or I hope they do). If they suspend him, then they have handled AB much better than we have.