The long regional nightmare is over. Raiders wide receiver Antonio Brown has decided on a helmet.
Brown will wear the Xenith Shadow this season, according to a statement released by Xenith on Wednesday. Xenith refers to the Shadow as its flagship product.
Brown, acquired from the Pittsburgh Steelers during the offseason, has been looking for a new helmet to replace the one he wore in his first nine NFL seasons. The NFL ruled that Brown's old helmet did not meet the league's safety standards. Brown's attention to his helmet situation resulted in diminished practice time during training camp for the seven-time Pro Bowler.
"It's just, I only get one head and one neck," Brown said Wednesday in a statement announcing his collaboration with Xenith. "So I gotta make sure when guys (are) trying to take my head off, I got the right lid to protect (me).
According to the statement, Xenith and the Raiders recently distributed new helmets to a Las Vegas-area youth camp.
Drew Rosenhaus, Brown's agent, told SiriusXM NFL Radio last week that his client had "multiple offers on the table right now from various companies to custom-make a helmet for him and pay him quite a bit of money." There was no specific information in Wednesday's statement regarding a financial relationship between Xenith and Brown, though Xenith CEO Ryan Sullivan stated, "we look forward to many more collaborations with AB."
"It's not easy to make a change like this so far into your career," Brown said in the statement, "but the Xenith Shadow was the only helmet that could fit my needs on the field."
Brown declined to speak to media Wednesday after Raiders practice.
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