TAMPA, Fla. — Sometimes, you just need to thank the heavenly stars for your good fortune.
I'm talking, of course, of Tampa Bay's relationship with Antonio Brown. The Buccaneers made it through two entire football games before being confronted with the latest embarrassing headline about Brown's off-field behavior. Two, by gosh.
That's twice as many games as the Patriots got out of Brown in 2019. And it's two more than the Raiders ever got.
Oh, happy days.
You're not surprised by this, are you? Because I'm pretty sure Bucs coach Bruce Arians isn't. A year ago, Arians dismissed the idea of acquiring Brown when he suggested the receiver was too much of a "diva." Eight months ago, he said the Bucs wouldn't sign Brown because he was "not a fit in our locker room." And yet here he is. And his baggage is forever circling the carousel.
Now, before you argue that Brown is misunderstood/persecuted/changed, I ask that you consider the evidence in its totality.
This isn't just about Brown destroying a security camera, cursing a property manager or throwing his bicycle at a security gate in his neighborhood last month. This isn't just about the pending civil litigation about his alleged sexual assault, including an accusation of forcible rape. This isn't just about the felony burglary with battery charge that got him suspended for the first half of the NFL season.
This isn't just about the practices he skipped or the bridges he burned in Pittsburgh, where he was once on a Hall of Fame trajectory. This isn't about the insubordination that got him released in Oakland before ever playing a regular-season game. This isn't about the parade of trainers, doctors, chefs and personal assistants who Sports Illustrated reported have accused Brown of failing to pay for their services. And it's not about the numerous domestic disturbance calls at his residences in Pittsburgh or South Florida over the years.
This is about all of that.
It's about invading the privacy of former teammates by posting their private messages on social media. It's about live-streaming Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin's locker room speech after a playoff game, even though it was against team rules. It's about recording a phone conversation with Raiders coach Jon Gruden and then posting it online, and also posting a letter from Oakland GM Mike Mayock. It's about a stream of misogynistic slurs in text messages from Brown's phone cited in court documents in the sexual assault case.
So can we dispense with the idea that everyone is picking on Brown? It's admirable to give a person the benefit of the doubt, but doubt gets squeezed out of the equation when indiscretions get stacked this high.
Let's be clear what we're talking about here:
The Bucs made a conscious decision to invite Brown's troubles to Tampa Bay in exchange for a better shot at the Super Bowl. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. This isn't about giving a wayward soul a fourth chance, because the streets are filled with guys begging for another shot.
The only reason the Bucs were in a charitable mood in this particular case is because Brown, 32, might still be an elite player.
Just to be clear, that's not a unique stance. The Steelers, Raiders and Patriots have all made similar calculations in recent years. According to an ESPN.com report last year, Tomlin once told Pittsburgh players that he would tolerate the behavior as long as Brown's production warranted it.
And once that sliding scale began to tip in the wrong direction, the Steelers ignored six consecutive 1,000-yard seasons and dumped him on Oakland for two mid-level draft picks. The Raiders got tired of him before the season opener and cut him loose without anything in return.
The Patriots had him for 11 days before the sexual assault allegation and Sports Illustrated reports went public, and coach Bill Belichick seemingly decided Brown wasn't worth the distraction.
So what do the Bucs do now?
Do they hide behind the NFL's umbrella and wait to see if this latest security gate confrontation leads to another suspension? Or do they acknowledge Brown's claims of being a new man sound hollow considering this latest incident was less than a month ago?
You can make the argument that Brown was not signed to sing in the church choir. And for all of these ugly episodes, his only foray in a criminal courtroom was for a dustup with a moving company employee.
Or you can make the argument that the Bucs hold themselves up as pillars of the community, and they are sending an incredible the-end-justifies-the-means message by overlooking Brown's many transgressions in pursuit of a championship.
At one point during his final days in Pittsburgh, Brown posted on Instagram that he no longer needed football.
"If they wanna play," he wrote, "they going to play by my rules."
So what do you think, Bucs fans? Are you OK with that?
