Pushing his legal troubles and his history of physical and verbal assault aside, as well as the filing by a former trainer of Brown’s for sexual assault and rape allegations, does Antonio Brown deserve a second chance with the Seattle Seahawks?
If that is how any conversation involving Brown lacing up his cleats again for the Seahawks or another NFL team starts out, then the individuals in charge having that conversation should never be able to make a personnel move ever again for an NFL franchise, plain and simple.
Never should the athletic abilities of one player supersede the heinous actions of that same player, regardless of whether these actions take place off the gridiron or not. The image that a person represents themselves with follows them everywhere, 24/7 and 365 days a year, and there are no moments that people should turn a blind eye to, simply because they are better than most at catching a football or making acrobatic plays that not many players are able to make on a regular basis.
The Seahawks know that Brown’s football abilities are hard to ignore, as he has carved out an extremely solid career coming out Central Michigan as the 195th overall selection in the 2010 NFL Draft. Going from a sixth-round selection to a receiver that put up six consecutive seasons of 1,000 receiving yards is not a small task, yet Brown made it look very easy while with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In only his second year in the league, Brown put up his first of seven total 1,000+ yard seasons, catching 69 passes for 1,108 yards but only two scores, which paved the way for him and Ben Roethlisberger, another NFL player with a very checkered off-field history that involves two accusations of sexual assault himself, to create an on-field bond that spanned nine seasons.
While the relationship between the two has seemingly soured recently, to the point where Big Ben and Brown would be at each other in team meetings and in on-field practices, these two once had it all, but their statures in the league and their determination to get the better of each other undermined themselves in the long run.
While Roethlisberger is still the starting quarterback of the Steelers, his injury history has taken a toll on his the past few seasons, making him look like he is on his last legs. But for Brown, his NFL career should for sure be over, especially looking at the ways that he has consistently put himself into bad situations and committed acts that most individuals serve jail time for.
Sports, especially the sport of football, can go to the heads of athletes, making them feel unstoppable to the point where it does not matter what they do. Their illegal life choices seem to always be covered up and thrown under the rug by their organizations, touting their on-field abilities yet never understanding the importance of seeing all elements of a player before putting them up on a pedestal.
Brown has had many run-ins with the NFL while he was still in the league, racking up countless fines for unnecessary roughness, uniform violations, excessive celebrations, unsportsmanlike conduct, and missing mandatory team activities (like minicamps). Totaling just under $400,000 in fines, Brown has been in the public eye for a while now due to his on-field activities, but his off-field activities have been thrust into the spotlight now, which hopefully will drive teams like the Seattle Seahawks and Baltimore Ravens away from wanting to sign him.
According to ESPN, the projected three-receiver starting set for the Seahawks, as their current roster stands as of today, has Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, and Phillip Dorsett II as the top three names on the depth chart. Lockett is the no. 1 here based on his production and veteran presence alone, Metcalf burst out onto the scene last year as a rookie and is primed to be even better as a sophomore, and Dorsett comes over from the New England Patriots in hopes that he can rekindle some of what made him the 25th overall selection back in 2015 of the Indianapolis Colts.
Of that three-deep look, Brown, if we are simply looking at his abilities and what he showed at the peak of his career, he would be the best receiver on this team, plain and simple. But if we are going to look at Brown as a player who needs to get back into prime playing shape, regardless of if he has been training during the offseason, that would put him as the third-best option, behind both Lockett and Metcalf but ahead of Dorsett.
Former University of Southern California head coach and current Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll has had his fair share of run-ins with the morality police, especially while coaching in the collegiate ranks, and those characteristics have seemingly followed him to the pros.
Carroll’s Seahawks have been fined on three separate occasions since 2012 for various infringements of offseason training rules, which all involve the league’s rules on offseason player contact. Having been through the wringer enough times to understand the value of a valuable public relations staff, Carroll has been able to continue his jaunt through coaching football while he has left messes in his wake.
Is Carroll above bringing in someone like Brown? Obviously not, otherwise, this article would have no legs to stand on. So since the conversation is minimally being had, involving some sort of conversation with Carroll, general manager John Schneider, and any other number of front-office members and scouting staff, the thought of this happening is actually closer than many may think it is.
Brown has been working out with Seahawks clipboard holder and backup quarterback Geno Smith, according to NFL Network’s Mike Silver, and Seattle is apparently “absolutely interested” in bringing Brown in to join their team.
The fact that this conversation has even reached the point of being leaked to the media says that there is for sure some serious thought being put into it, which is a very sad realization that many fans of football are going to be coming across.
Will this move actually deter fans from sticking with Seattle, even if they do not end up signing him? It absolutely could, and they are absolutely right for thinking that way. The type of actions that Brown has displayed throughout his career, both on and off the football field, proves that his athletic, on-field abilities and statistics should absolutely never overshadow the atrocities that have been following him off the field that he has no one to blame but himself.
So in short, no, the Seahawks, regardless of how injury-riddled their WR ranks get, should not bring Brown up to the state of Washington and get him into an NFL game. He has not earned that right, he will never earn that right ever again and does not deserve even the chance to earn that right back, and the amount of times that he has gotten off the hook easy due to his ‘athlete stature’ is absolutely sickening, and it shows the thought process of society and the league and how they value morality less than stats.
The NFL has an issue with addressing the morals of what is supposed to happen versus what puts athletes above the law, and people suffer because of it. The quality of the game has taken a decline as well due to the unfortunate actions of the league, and another one of those actions that would bring the league down would be if Brown was able to be let back in, plain and simple.
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