Is there a more polarizing (or topical) football player at the moment? Having built up a very successful career in the NFL coming into the league as a small-school prospect, wide receiver Antonio Brown had it made. From being drafted in the sixth round to, at one point, leading the NFL in annual salary for a wide receiver, Brown’s career was perfect—until it wasn’t.
With that in mind, today we're going to look at Brown's net worth in 2022.
Antonio Brown's net worth in 2022 (estimate): $20 million
Antonio Brown's net worth in 2022 is roughly $20 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Having derailed any sort of long-term success that Brown could have easily kept up to finish out his career, his personal and off-field life ended up getting in the way of things, pushing him into the spotlight for all of the wrong reasons, all while pushing the likelihood of him having a long, big-money career in the NFL down the drain.
Brown’s current net worth is nothing to scoff at. It can easily help support a lavish lifestyle, one that he had once he entered the league. But when looking at it compared to what he had earned in the past and the value in each of the long-term contracts he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders, it is easy to see how he could have had so much more.
After coming into the NFL from Central Michigan, the Steelers grabbed Brown as the 195th overall pick in 2010, adding him to their already-loaded receiver ranks, which at the time included the likes of Hines Ward, Antwaan Randle El, Mike Wallace, Arnaz Battle, and Emmanuel Sanders.
Suiting up in only nine games his rookie year, Brown was given a shot to make a name for himself through the kick and punt return game more than on offense, and right away in his first career NFL game, he endeared himself to the Pittsburgh faithful. Having joined Carolina Panthers’ receiver Steve Smith as the first player to have returned a kickoff for a touchdown in his first game, Brown looked to have carved a role out for himself right out of the gate.
Brown showed up big in the NFL Playoffs for the Steelers, even though his one-catch, one-yard performance in the Super Bowl, which the Steelers lost to the underdog Green Bay Packers, was not a fitting end to his rookie campaign.
During the final year of his rookie contract, Brown re-upped with the Steelers for five more years and $42.5 million, which ended up being the start of a great relationship between the two parties. For six of the next seven seasons, Brown put up at least 101 receptions, 1,284 receiving yards, and eight touchdowns, showing that the Steelers had found a diamond in the rough with Brown being a late-round selection.
Equipment violations, excessive touchdown celebrations, and unnecessary roughness penalties all contributed to Brown becoming a bit lighter in the pockets during his first big contract with the Steelers, although his on-field performance did not seem to slip. But these events were the first sights of what was to come for both Brown and the Steelers, and that their relationship was on its way to souring.
In February 2017, Brown signed another extension with the team, this time for four seasons and $68 million, eclipsing the amount his previous deal was for by over $25 million, for one fewer season. But Brown was unable to finish out that deal with the Stelelers, as he was shipped out in 2019 to the Raiders, after his relationship with the likes of Ben Roethlisberger, Le’veon Bell, and Juju Smith-Schuster went south—big time.
Seeing this as a way of being able to get out of a big-money contract, the Steelers found a taker in the Raiders, who have a slight penchant for taking on reclamation projects and hoping that they turn out and pay dividends. In return for trading Brown away, the Steelers received two picks in the 2019 NFL Draft, a third-round and a fifth-round selection, which were used on receiver Diante Johnson and tight end Zach Gentry, respectively.
While the Steelers were able to move on from what they thought was the last of their problems (Big Ben’s injuries, Bell’s contract demands, and Smith-Schuster’s inconsistencies decided to pop up after Brown was shipped out of town), the Raiders had their fair share of issues with Brown just as soon as he arrived in town.
On the same day that Brown was traded from Pittsburgh to Oakland, he signed a three-year, $50.125 million restructured contract extension after his deal with the Steelers was not going to get it done for the controversial star. Even with the contract extension seemingly being the final piece to solving the puzzle that was Brown at the time, that would be just the beginning of the end for both Brown and the Raiders.
Skipping mandatory workouts with the team, getting on the wrong side of head coach Jon Gruden (but seemingly getting back on the right side with him and then the wrong side again), and overall just becoming even more of a nuisance for Oakland than he was in Pittsburgh, Brown’s tenure with the Silver and Black was short-lived.
Only lasting five months and eight days from his contract extension, Brown received a $53K fine for missing mandatory team practices and then proceeded to get fined $215K for conduct detrimental to the team, which was the final straw between the two camps. Brown was released the following day, three days short of being on the team for six months.
But the seemingly final straw of Brown’s up-and-down NFL career lies with the New England Patriots, as he signed a one-year deal the same day he was released by Oakland, for $10.5 million. Seen as just another feather in the cap of head coach and general manager Bill Belichick, Brown was added as a weapon for Tom Brady to take advantage of, which he did, but only for one game.
Allegations of heinous assault crimes started to come out in full force against Brown, and even the Patriots, who have been involved in their own crimes in the past, knew to get rid of Brown, so they released him after 13 days on the roster, coincidentally only a few days ahead of when Brown was to be guaranteed certain roster bonuses.
So by just taking a look at the rookie deal and the contract extensions that Brown signed throughout his career, he should have come out of the league (hypothetically thinking that he completed all of his contracts in full) with $172.413 million, roughly. Taking away all of the fines that he accrued over his career, that total would sit above $172.05 million, which is still a massive amount of money.
But instead, Brown looks to be sitting at just around $20 million, which again is not a bad total at all, but it surely is something that pales in comparison when looking at what he could have had, even with all of the fines.
The good news for Antonio Brown is he is coming off a productive season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Meaning, basically, despite the Patriots disaster, not only was another team willing to take a risk on him, but he played pretty well doing so, making him a still valuable player on the market.
That being said, now that he's had the entire fiasco of him storming off the field with a week of the 2022 season left, his future remains murky and his time with the Buccaneers is certainly over.
Even with all the issues, were you surprised by Antonio Brown's net worth in 2022?
Follow Us
Subscribe