Should Antonio Brown Be A First Ballot HOFer?

Antonio Brown has been quiet in the spotlight for a while now, surprisingly. But lets not forget all the trouble he's caused for himself and the teams he's played for.

Let me start off by saying that Antonio Brown is without a doubt making the HOF. You simply can not leave off one of the best WRs of all time from going to Canton. Brown last played during the 2021-22 season. He was drafted in 2010 in the fifth round out of Central Michigan University. He played with the Pittsburgh steelers his first nine seasons in the NFL. After that he played one game with the New England Patriots before being cut that season. Sat out the rest of that season. Then in 2020 the Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed him and he played there for two seasons. He hasn’t played since but has been in the news for all of the wrong reasons.

If we look solely on the numbers then Antonio Brown would easily make the HOF in his first try. Unfortunately, the voters don’t just look at the numbers. They look at your whole body of work as well. That includes your character and how you impacted your team(s) you played for. A perfect example of this is HOF WR Terrell Owens. If you look at strictly the numbers, Owens should’ve easily made it in his first try. Though because of his “off the field issues” Owens made it in his third try. Now I put it in quotations because I don’t believe Owens did anything that would’ve warranted something like this. I can remember when he was with the cowboys and had a media frenzy outside his house while he was doing sit ups and talking to the media during his suspension from team activities with the Philadelphia Eagles. We won’t get too much into detail about Owens and his antics but I just wanted to use him as one of the more recent examples. Now lets take a look at some of Browns antics that he’s done.

During the 2017 playoffs, the steelers had just finished beating the Kansas City Chiefs 18-16 to advance to the AFC championship game to face the New England Patriots. Brown decided to start filming and recording the celebrations in the locker room on instagram live. You can see where this could go wrong. During the live you can hear head coach Mike Tomlin in the back giving a colorful speech, talking about the Patriots. As you can probably guess, there was some players that were not happy with that. And this was just the beginning of the downhill spiral of Browns career.

After a lot of back and forth with the organization, the Steelers finally traded him to the Las Vegas Raiders(at the time known as the Oakland Raiders). I didn’t mention this as one of his teams earlier because he was not there for very long. The first week he was there he was already complaining about his helmet. So, already not off to a good start. The situation blew up when Brown had a dispute with then GM Mike Mayock and Brown threatened to punch him in the face. Surprisingly, HC John Gruden decided not to suspend Brown since he did apologize to his teammates and the team. The last straw was that same day at night when Brown posted a two minute private conversation between him and Gruden, which in California is illegal without the consent of the other person. Then the following morning, Brown made a post on his instagram telling the raiders to release him. Brown got his wish but they did void 29 million of his 30 million he was guaranteed that season.

Immediately after, he is signed by the Patriots. Before he even played a game with them, there was a civil lawsuit of Brown by one of his former trainers in which the woman alleges he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions during the three years they worked together, including one being rape. They hadn’t released him yet because well everyone is innocent until proven guilty, right? Well there was a second woman that came out and accused him that as well. How handled this situation was not good at all. Someone leaked his conversation with the woman where he is threatening her and even went as far as posting a picture of her children on social media. So when the Patriots got a hold of this information, he was released.

His last stop in the NFL was with the Buccaneers. During this time no other team wanted to give him a chance because of all the trouble he’s caused to this point. Tom Brady was the one who vouched for him and got the Bucs to sign him. He was also the one who go the Patriots to sign him. His first season there was actually pretty quiet for Browns standards. He helped the Bucs get their second championship in this century. All was well. Until it wasn’t. In 2021 he would be suspended for violating Covid protocols by lying about his vaccination status with a fake card. Then the last negative thing he would do during his NFL career happened. It was during a game vs the New York Jets where Brown would take off his jersey and shoulder pads and subsequently quit during the middle of the game. After the game he claims he was upset because the team covered up an ankle injury and forced him to play. Then Brown was released after.

The crazy thing is this is just the trouble he’s caused while he was in the NFL. There have been many more things he’s done since technically retiring from the NFL. With all this being said, I don’t believe he should make it in on his first try. If the NFL wants to be consistent with the criteria and who they let in, then he won’t make it the first time. As much as I do believe he is one of the best WRs of all time and his peak is probably top three, he doesn’t deserve to be a first ballot HOFer

.