How One Hit Can Change A Life - The Antonio Brown Story

For a man who led the 2010s in almost every receiving stat, played for the same team for nearly a decade, and won a Super Bowl to top it all off, very few people would’ve predicted the fall from grace for one of the greatest wide receivers of this generation. Antonio Brown was a fan favorite up in Pennsylvania, playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, making big plays, and engaging the crowd. Coming a long way from his humble beginnings, he was kicked out of his own house as a teenager and played quarterback for his school while homeless. However, during one match everything would change. Setting in motion the events that would eventually lead to the downfall of Antonio Brown. 

Antonio Brown was born July 10th, 1988, in Miami, Florida. While spending his formative years in Florida, Brown would be kicked out of his house at just sixteen after an altercation with his stepfather. He ended up having to scavenge for money or sleep on the couches or porches of teammates' houses, while also having the pressure of being the starting quarterback for his local high school, Miami Norland Senior High. After impressing in Miami, he would continue his career at North Carolina Tech and Central Michigan State, where he would convert from a quarterback to wide receiver, before declaring for the NFL draft in 2010. Despite his astonishing numbers in college, many NFL teams were still skeptical of him, even if they even had him on their draft boards. All thirty-two NFL teams passed up on him not once, not twice, but five times during the draft, in which he would be the twenty-second wide receiver taken. Finally, Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers would select him with the 195th pick, allowing Brown the chance to prove he was one of the best wide receivers not only from that draft but of his generation. 

After several successful seasons in Pittsburgh, in which he would receive over 5,000 yards and thirty touchdowns, Brown received a massive contract to keep him there for the next four years. However, it seemed as if it had all quickly gone to his head. Just weeks after signing the contract, Brown would walk into the training facility and tell defensive coaches and players alike:  “Don’t touch me, I'm the franchise.”

He would go on to break even more records throughout the next four seasons, until a 2016 wildcard game against the Cincinnati Bengals, when Brown was hit by linebacker Vontez Burfict and laid motionless for a substantial amount of time after. Even though Brown recovered and played the rest of the game and the following season, it was later revealed that he had received permanent brain damage from the collision. A collision that many experts and fans alike believe was the moment in which Antonio Brown’s spiral truly started to take motion. 

After relatively few incidents in the first six years of his NFL career, Antonio Brown racked up several fines during the next three years of his career, including over forty thousand dollars for twerking on the field after scoring touchdowns in the first few weeks. One multi-million dollar contract, and several incidents later, the Steelers traded him to the Oakland Raiders, a move that would not work out for either party. Within just a few weeks, the Raiders would have released Brown for missing practice, wearing improper footwear, and then threatening to beat up the team’s general manager. The New England Patriots gave Brown a one-year deal before even they had to release him because of several lawsuits against him that he would settle later in the year. Even with those issues settled, who would want to sign a notorious, trouble-making, wide receiver now, especially with an eight-game suspension for his poor conduct off the field? Well, one man did: Tom Brady. 

Antonio Brown headed down to Tampa to help Brady win his first Super Bowl with his new team, something they managed to accomplish, despite Brown only being signed halfway through the season. Brown had seemingly found a home in Tampa Bay, signing a one-year extension with the Buccaneers, just a few years after being traded by the Steelers and cut by both the Raiders and Patriots. He would spend the following off-season battling Covid, leading him to fake a vaccination card that would later cause the NFL to suspend him for three games. Near the end of the regular season, Buccaneers head coach, Bruce Arians, would tell Brown to play despite him pleading to be left out as he felt he had not recovered from a previous injury. He would reiterate this on the sideline during the game several times, and when Arians told him to go back on the field again, Brown refused, instead stripping down his clothes and heading back to the locker room. In the following days, Brown would be cut from the Buccaneers, ending a relatively positive time with the organization that had allowed him to win his only Super Bowl to date.

At the time of writing, Antonio Brown is still a free agent. His story is one that boggles the mind. It is a tale of perseverance, determination, and bravery, yet also one of cowardness, arrogance, and tragedy. It is a warning to all young people, not just aspiring football players. It’s a tragic lesson--that even though someone may work for years trying to reach their ultimate goal, it could all be taken away from them in a split second.

By Luke Birch