The Great Resignation Of Antonio Clown
If Antonio Brown never sees a football field again, he absolutely went out with style.
On Sunday, against the Jets, noted problem child Antonio Brown was spotted arguing on the sideline, taking his jersey and pads off, taking his shirt off, and throwing it into the stands, all before posing before the endzone crowd and stomping off into the locker room. When asked about it in the postgame conference Bruce Arians simply said he is no longer a Buc and then moved on. One last glorious moment of clownery out the door. It is hard to believe Brown will end up anywhere after this.
Brown’s side of the story tells the tale of a player who supposedly hurt his ankle, did not want to go back into the game while dealing with the injury, and was told right there on the field by Arians that he was “done”. At that point, Brown presumably yelled “you can’t fire me, I QUIT” and threw his tantrum for the ages. For a…substantial…number of reasons, taking Brown’s side of the story as truth is somewhat difficult. If what Brown said is true, and Arians has not yet really elaborated on the conversation that supposedly caused the explosion, then Brown was certainly right to be mad. But at this point can anyone trust Antonio Brown to give an accurate factual description of events? I don’t even have trouble believing Arians was the issue on this particular moment but it doesn’t matter. I am never going to give Brown the benefit of the doubt at this stage, after everything he’s pulled.
Brown at this point absolutely has to have some mental illness. I hope he receives help. I hope he finds peace and manages to be okay. I don’t know his personal life and what struggles he may be going through. But my empathy for the man stops there. He’s wronged a lot of people and he doesn’t get a free pass because he’s possibly brain-damaged. The NFL and the Bucs are to blame as well for enabling this behavior because he catches a mean touchdown, but Brown needs help more than he needs anything else. I genuinely hope his walkout is the last time he sets foot on a field. He got too many chances as it is.
I’m also not a fan of the idea that the Burfict hit “broke” him. While it by no means made him better, he was a diva before the hit and he didn’t immediately turn into a clown after it. There are stories of people getting brain damage and changing personality, but they aren’t common and unless a doctor specifically diagnoses this, I think it’s gross to assume that hit did it.
Not gonna lie though, Brown did what many of us dream of doing. Telling your boss to eat shit in as flamboyant a spectacle as possible? I wish I could have done that for like, at least 3 past jobs. If this tantrum happened in a vacuum without the baggage that comes with Brown, I’d be flat out cheering the man as a legend. May we all one day have a chance to go out guns blazing like Antonio Brown, a clown till the end.
Vontaze Burfict ruined Brown with that one hit. Brown is a jackass but everything seems to be compounded since that destructive hit. If doctors could test for CTE in the living Brown would have been down for years. IMO
He dropkicked the Browns punter two years before the hit. It may have been what finally cracked him, but the screws were loose long before.
That was clearly an accident
I never viewed that as intentional. He was trying to jump over the guy and it didn’t work. You can go look at the big incidents he has had and the big ones don’t start until after that hit
Brown got kicked from Florida International because of an altercation with a security guard.
https://www.nbcsports.com/northwest/oregon-ducks/mario-cristobal-unexpectedly-gets-roped-antonio-brown-drama
Not saying he was a model citizen but if you look at his issues in the NFL they start to get more bizarre after that hit
My understanding of CTE is that it’s usually a whole lot of less well documented hits over an entire career. Burfict is still the worst though.
They have found CTE in former high school players so I assume Brown has enough hits over the period of his career but I would assume the severity of trauma would compound things. That said I am only speculating based on his league issues he has had before that hit and since that hit
Last time someone flamed out this spectacularly, they had help; George Teague flattened him half a second later.
The Vontaze Burfict hit didn’t break AB, but it certainly compounded an issue that he was most likely already struggling with and continued to struggle with well after it occurred. It’s pretty certain that he is most likely suffering from CTE, and it’s honestly very sad to witness. Can only hope the guy gets help because it sucks seeing a dude spiral out of control like he has.
I also think it’s worth noting that AB had a rough childhood growing up. If I’m not mistaken he was abandoned as a teenager and left homeless for a while before going to college to play football. I’m not trying to justify his behavior, but I do think that sort of chaotic upbringing might also be contributing to his personality disorder. Coupled with CTE, it makes a little bit of sense as to why he’s acting this way.
I’m torn. I don’t blame/criticize you for turning it into a comic, Dave, but this personally hit all the wrong notes for me. Whatever caused it, it is very clear Brown is suffering from something, has been suffering from something, and depending on what it is, then yes, it is possibly very much beyond his control.
Not to drag the fun times down, but this is why I don’t find it funny… my mother was recently diagnosed with dementia. Her personality changes on a dime, and it’s 100% beyond her ability to see what she’s doing as it happens. Her behavior can be erratic and she will often act against her own best interests. Whether it’s CTE or some form of dementia, AB clearly can’t see the world for what it is in front of him, and doing things that go against his own best interests are a clear sign, to me, that it’s not just him being selfish or an asshat.
I put most of this on Brady, the Bucs, and the NFL, in that order. Brady can take his “This is a person, he deserves our sympathy,” and shove it up his rectal cavity. When AB had value on the field, Brady didn’t give a flying beep about what he was going through. Only when his shriveled carcass offers no value to Tom on the field, does he suddenly roll up the dog and pony show about him being a human being. F@& you, Tom.
Whether the Bucs were fully on board subjecting a guy with mental issues to more head trauma or whether Tommy “forced” them into it, they signed up and refused to cut him after the fake vaccination card, so they own a piece of this pie, too. And I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, but one would think that the NFL, at some point, would have forced this guy to take a full medical evaluation. They might not be able to diagnose CTE until he’s dead, but they have tests to evaluate for dementia and other brain issues. If he wasn’t 100% right in those tests, I don’t think he should have been able to take the field after what happened with the Raiders. Hell, he shouldn’t have been allowed back on the field purely for threatening / attempting to assault Mayock, the rape texts, and everything else he had swirling around him beyond his behavior. But if you can ball, people like Brady and the NFL don’t give a f$*%, as long as there’s no video evidence.
Brady certainly deserves some blame for continuing to enable him / get him a job without also forcing him to get help first (as far as we know). But I’m not seeing where you’re getting the evidence that Brady didn’t care what Brown was going through before this. All indications I’ve seen are that he offered for Brown to live in his house when he came to New England, and that he stuck his neck out for him when no one else in the league would touch him. Those may or may not show that he cared about him as more than a football player, but I can’t see where it (or any of his other actions) showed that he did NOT care for the human being before this too.
As a big University of Michigan fan, I’ve followed a lot about Brady for many years. And despite some obvious flaws, I’ve never heard a single teammate talk bad about playing with him, or about how Brady treated them (Belichick or other coaches? Sure, there seems to lots of room for debates about whether the ‘New England way’ was fun, or worth it. But I’ve never heard it pressed back on Brady as if he only cared about what you brought to the team.
And I’m sorry about your mom. That sucks to have to deal with, especially with a loved one who you know once cared for you and was a fully rational and loving parent. I hope they find some things that can help her, and in turn help you.
That’s fair. IF Brady has been doing things privately that counter the public image, I will willingly recant some of what I said, as I’m not aware of any of it. But to date, publicly, Tom seems to do everything in his power to get this man on the field, in ways that prioritize championships above all else. Brady openly acknowledges an above-normal obsession with succeeding at football. He’s driven to win… HARD. Given that he has repeatedly balked at discussing any of the issues surrounding AB in the past, which would threaten his on-field availability, I think it’s fair to assume he’s at least somewhat willing to look past them. “Rape accusations? I don’t care, come live with my wife and children; as long as you score TDs, we’re good.”
Now, I’m not saying Tom doesn’t care AT ALL. It’s just that everything else in the real word is secondary to the pursuit of football championships. Where was this message of AB needing help when he flamed out in New England? Where was this message a few weeks ago with the vaccine card or when he was threatening women in text messages? Admittedly, I don’t think very highly of Brady as a person, so there’s a not-small amount of bias on my end. But it seems very suspicious to me that Brady didn’t talk about him as a MAN until he became useless to him as a PLAYER.
Regarding my mom, thanks. I don’t want to derail football fun, but I figured a relevant point would help explain why I’m sad that people in the public eye are looking at this man – who has been sending clear messages that he needs help for years, now – and their first instinct is to point and laugh. We’re better than that.
> Brady didn’t talk about him as a MAN until he became useless to him as a PLAYER.
I take the more charitable view that Brady talked through his actions while he could provide more influence to an active player.
Now that Brown is no longer crashing at his place and trying to get on a football field, he can only offer sound bites from a distance.
I agree and am annoyed that Brady enabled the situation at all by doing his best to see that AB got two more chances, though Belichick and the Pats may have been equally to blame on the first of the two.
I agree with you on the first two points. I don’t think this is the kind of subject that should be joked about and it’s a shame that so many people are taking it as an opportunity to dunk on a guy with clear mental illness. I also agree that there is a lot more to this than just AB being a selfish asshole with some mental issues. This is clearly deep rooted and he badly needs help to steer him from his self-destructive path.
Where I disagree is in your assessment that Tom Brady is primarily to blame here. It’s not right that he’s helping AB get a job without repercussions, but insinuating that Brady doesn’t care about AB as a person is just outright false. Brady stuck his neck out for the guy and did everything to keep him on the right path. Obviously Brady made a pitch for AB because of the competitive advantage, but so did Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson and many, many others throughout the league. AB picked the picked the Bucs because he was close friends with Brady, and all indications seem to point to the two having a very close relationship. I get the vibe that Brady was genuinely trying to help out a close friend of his, even if he should have strayed away. His post-game presser confirms it, since he was very clearly accepting of the fact that he was no longer on the team but still wanted the dude to get help wherever he ended up. It’s fine to dislike Tom Brady, but I find it kind of odd that you’d draw such a conclusion about him when all signs point in the opposite direction.
The fault lay strictly with the NFL here. They’ve allowed this mentality to fester for too long and players/teams are just taking advantage of it. If Brady and the Bucs didn’t make a call for AB, another team most certainly would have, because at the end of the day they all value talent over all else. Character/Mental issues mean nothing if there’s any potential for a positive return in the win column, and until the NFL actually does something to combat it, guys like AB will continue to find jobs in their league.
Sorry, in my lengthy editing process, I rephrased that sentence about blame 180 degrees backwards. NFL gets most blame for letting him play, Bucs get next most blame for signing him and keeping him, and Brady gets 3rd most blame for pushing so heavily. My bad, that’s 100% on me.
I mostly replied to your comment in my reply to sTim above, so I won’t double up here, only to recap that I don’t think it’s that Tom doesn’t care, it’s that he’s publicly put what’s best for himself ON the field above what’s best for AB OFF of it. And I agree – most other teams would do the same damn thing.
I’m not entirely sure Dave was making fun of the situation.
The “Antonio Clown” comics have become a thing similar to ringless Rivers in the sense that it’s been ongoing for years. This could be the big ending. And while it could be viewed as comical, Dave said repeatedly that it was a legendary move. If anyone other than AB does this, it’s not viewed quite as badly. But because it’s AB, people are like “this guy, again?”
Even the tone in Dave’s post suggests that it’s not funny and that the guy needs help. It’s hard to catch the tone of something sometimes on the internet and it’s very easy to misunderstand the point. The comic was one part concerned reality and one part nod of satisfaction in that AB did (as Dave said) what many wish they could do to current/former employers.
Before this, the guy annoyed me with his antics. After this, I’m genuinely concerned for his well being. I hope the people around him do what it takes to see that he gets the help he needs. And I hope nothing for the best for your mom. I know close friends that have dealt with similar situations and to say it’s hard is a severe understatement.
My intention with this comic was to make it a “quitting your job in style” joke more than anything else. It’s not even the first time I’ve kinda done this gag: https://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/why-doug-marrone-left/. I did draw him as a clown, but as you suspected, that’s part of running visual gags like Walrus Reid, Kermit Mahomes, tiny Russ.
AB’s baggage was going to make any post on him a bit delicate and I don’t blame Blueberries for being bothered especially if he’s got personal history.
I’m not trying to call out Dave specifically, I’ll apologize again if I came off that way. There are tons of people on the internet who are, have been, and probably will continue to laugh at AB’s situation. It’s more of a societal commentary, not that this one lone webcomic maker is taking shots at mental health. While I personally don’t find the comic amusing, I have no problem with Dave making it, or with people who find it funny. The only thing I specifically shake my head at Dave over is the alt-text, where he called watching him come apart on the field “hilarious to watch.”
D’oh, didn’t see your reply when I started typing mine, Dave. But yea, you have nothing to defend or apologize for, and just to reiterate, I think you handled this in the best possible way, making it more about the job quitting than the details of his breakdown.
It’s no worries and I get the assessment for Brady. He is a highly competitive dude and it’s understandable that it comes off as if he’s only dragging AB everywhere with him squarely for the competitive advantage. I just follow Brady enough to get the vibe that he really was trying to help AB behind the scenes, even if he wasn’t always publicly commenting on him. I don’t think you let a guy take a room in your home if you don’t intend to help him in some way, and while his efforts may have been misguided, I don’t think Brady is a bad dude for trying to help him in whatever way he felt worked best.
There seems like some sort of relationship between Brady and Brown that Brady has kept the details of away from the media. It’s really hard to judge what’s going on there from an outsider perspective but my gut thinks Brady’s heart was in the right place but he’s so competitor-brained he probably thinks winning games is therapy.
Ok, so I’m going to do something I don’t usually do…. give Tom Brady the benefit of the doubt and walk back most of my scathing remarks against him. Shannon Sharpe said he speaks to former Patriots, and they said Tom would do right by AB and reach out to him privately, and while I mostly watch Undisputed to laugh at Brainless while I work, I do trust Shannon Sharpe.
I still think Tom enabled AB, and publicly he’s putting out a bad look IMO, but it appears he enabled him and might be at least trying to do right by him, so I will… very begrudgingly… credit him for that. I agree with you, Dave, he probably thinks another Super Bowl trophy will cure the guy.
At what point though does he start being held accountable for not seeking that help? He has money, he has connections, he could easily seek treatment if he has a mental illness. I know that Blueberries above brought up dementia, but as dave pointed out AB engaged in diva behavior long before all of this; things that while not serious, serve to paint a picture that could go either way (stuff like calling out juju out of jealousy when juju looked up to him). This is what I take issue with regarding brown, the idea that people just assume he is mentally ill as if that’s the go to excuse for doing bad stuff.
AB is a criminal. A felon, even. Just like it seems gross to you to dunk on someone who “clearly” has a mental illness, it seems gross to me to just automatically go to “Mental illness” when there’s just as good a chance that he’s just a crappy person. I get the idea that if someone has a real mental illness, that they may ultimately not be responsible for their own actions. But being a bad person isn’t always caused by a mental illness either, and it’s really hard for me to stomach basically sticking up for a guy and absolving him of the bad things he’s done based on the assumption he is not well, because that’s what it is, an assumption.
We may not know whether or not he was mentally unwell until his death, and until that time, then if he needs help then I do hope he gets it. But he should not have people shift blame onto someone else in lieu of himself until we know that for sure. In addition to himself? Sure, go for it, the NFL and bucs and like every team who gave him a chance after the steelers and maybe even the steelers deserve some blame in all this. But until it’s proven that he is in fact mentally ill, he does too, and as the one who actually did the bad/dumb things, he gets just as much if not more than the rest. It may not be funny to go after someone who is possibly sick, but it’s also not “dunking” on someone by just holding them accountable for the actions they did.
Spoken like someone who has no idea what mental illness is like. The problem with mental illness is that the part of you that diagnoses your behaviour and would tell you that you need help is broken. “If he’s sick then why hasn’t he sought help” is an extremely ignorant argument to the truths of mental illness. We think he’s got mental health issues because he’s acting in an erratic manner that is consistent with the a damaged brain from constant collisions he’s been exposed to in a collision sport. Football is bad for your brain. And I’m going to go ahead and point the finger at each and every one of us here, because football players are giving themselves that brain damage for our entertainment and I’m not gonna sit here and clutch pearls without acknowledging that, minuscule though my contribution might be, I’m still a part of the problem.
On the other hand, the NFL, even though it’s a shitty profit-making machine that sucks its athletes dry, may just have been the only thing giving AB some semblance of structure in his life. Don’t be surprised if, once the Bucs get rid of him, his life REALLY starts going out of control.
I am well aware of why people think he’s mentally ill; I’m just saying I personally agree with Dave’s sentiment that he doesn’t get a pass because his brain might be busted, and I felt like some of the above posters were leaning towards that; assigning more blame to those enabling him than the one doing the bad stuff. If you still disagree with that then that’s fine, but I”m not ready to absolve him.
I will say, however, that yes it was incredibly irresponsible of me to phrase my first section the way I did. What I was going for more was “taking responsibility for his actions period” not specifically receiving help, but I realize that what I said in that section was not right to say, so I apologize for that.
Speaking only for myself, I do think he should be held legally accountable for his actions when the time comes. But *IF* he is truly unfit mentally, he can’t be the only one to blame for this situation.
Anonymous put it well. We all take part in watching a sport that, by default, is guaranteed to leave broken people in its wake. We comfort ourselves by saying they know what they’re getting into, and that they are trading their long-term health for short-term profit, ergo it’s ok.
Not to call down the ghost of Collinsworth upon us, but… here’s a guy, who – potentially – can no longer be trusted to make that decision. IF he is suffering from brain trauma, he’s not really capable of making the decision to play.
On the flip side, it’s possible that he’s 100% sane, it’s all an act, and he’s playing us. The wall of text his team put out last night accusing the Bucs of cutting him for not going into the game when he had bone shards in his ankle and was playing through excruciating pain right before happily jogging off the field… that’s going to muddy things up a bit. I don’t believe that, but it’s possible.
Mostly, I just think the NFL, and society, should do a better job of looking at people like this, and instead of standing back and pointing at the guy to laugh, own up to our collective parts in what got the guy to where he was, and trying to do better so the next one following down this path gets the help they need before it’s too late.
You should do a John Madden Memorial Comic.
Dave already mentioned he’ll be doing a comic for that. I’m looking forward to that, but Madden did so much it’ll be tough to cover
I am extremely glad at how this turned out after Arians was a coward and let him keep playing because he was good
I’m honestly shocked, as I had expected some final AB blowup because Arians wanted to keep AB off the field for a jumbo package or something, not because Arians wanted to get AB onto the field.
I’m also disappointed, because I enjoy rooting for Arians most of the time. I wonder how things would have been if Godwin were healthy.
That’s one way to put it. I’m gonna go on a limb and say that most NFL players don’t want to quit their jobs.
Hey Dave, the version of the list you linked to is actually a TRUNCATED version of it because it was getting too long for reddit comments to be able to post. I keep a full version of the list on /r/antoniobrown.
Two thoughts:
1) SOMEBODY will pick AB up for the playoffs. (Cue Andy Reid in 3…. 2…. )
2) More interested in seeing if T.O. joins the Bucs (insert “The Scream” emoji here)
That’s probably exactly why the Bucs haven’t cut him, yet.
I still find it hard to believe that he wasn’t pasted onto a picture of the Bucs-Jets game. He was actually there, at that time, waving his arms, Mr. Bare Chest. Wild, wild stuff.
Tom Brady sold his soul for another ring by bringing in Antonio Brown, because lets be real, he wouldn’t care about him if he wasn’t super good at catching a football.
What can be said, Antonio Brown will no longer have to worry about a ring after last year. I’ll be surprised if another team comes to pick him up next season.
OF COURSE YOU SUPPORT Bruce “THUG” Arians!!! How would you feel if you were forced to play while hurt?? #StandWithAB
Lol he released his bank details on accident too