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On Thursday, the Oakland Raiders fined Antonio Brown for his offseason antics. It looked as if he wouldn't play against the Denver Broncos on Monday night in the season-opener, too. That changed when Raiders head coach Jon Gruden stated on Friday that he would play against the Broncos.
However, Denver was never under the assumption that Brown wouldn't play.
“We’ve just been assuming that he was going to play all along. Obviously that’s the way it looks right now,” coach Vic Fangio said, per The Athletic's Nicki Jhabvala.
Outside linebacker and three-time All-Pro Von Miller also never bought into the possibility that Brown wouldn't take the field on Monday night.
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“You can’t have a good team and let one player being down or one player being up change your whole game plan or change the way you feel about the game. We always assumed that he was playing. That’s just the way we attacked it from the very first day.”
It would've been fair to blame Fangio and Miller if they weren't prepared to face Brown. After all, the six-time Pro Bowler reportedly got into a fight with Raiders general manager Mike Mayock, who fined him for missing practice — leading Brown to post a photo of the fine on his Instagram story. That tends typically to not sit well with a team, especially considering Brown's offseason.
However, now the Broncos will be tasked with defending him. It won't be easy, but at least they are prepared to do so and have a stout secondary to slow him down.
