Getty Antonio Brown with Derek Carr.
The Las Vegas Raiders are far removed from the Antonio Brown debacle of 2019 and better off for it. The star wide receiver forced his release from the team after a series of incidents that included him threatening to attack former general manager Mike Mayock. Despite his obvious toxicity, teams continued to give him chances as he landed with the New England Patriots and then Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The final straw came during a game last season when Brown got into an argument with former Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians that led to him running off the field and making a scene. He was promptly cut by Tampa Bay and no other team has been willing to give him another chance. Brown hasn’t done much in recent months to suggest that he’s ready to put his head down and focus on football.
One player who has caught some strays from the wide receiver over the years is Raiders quarterback Derek Carr. Brown randomly decided to target Carr again on Snapchat by posting a picture where the quarterback is photoshopped to be much more overweight than he actually is.
Carr has never come out and said anything bad about Brown. The two seemed to have a good relationship when he first joined the Raiders. It’s an odd way to troll the quarterback but nobody seems to understand Brown these days.
Is Brown Done in the NFL?
Brown doesn’t have many friends left around the NFL. He could get away with his antics when he was in his 20s and literally impossible for cornerbacks to defend. However, he’s 34 and gets injured more frequently. There is also an abundance of good wide receivers in the league right now.
Brown consistently stays in amazing physical condition but what he brings to the field isn’t worth the headache he causes. He was on a Hall of Fame trajectory before he forced his way out of Pittsburgh. There was a stretch from 2014 to 2018 where there could’ve been an argument that he was the best player in the entire league. Instead, he’s out of the league, will certainly not get any Hall of Fame votes and his football career is essentially over. It’s difficult to imagine a team gets desperate enough to add him at his current age.
Davante Adams Wants Raiders to Stay Positive
It took three years but the Raiders were finally able to find an elite wide receiver to replace Brown this offseason in Davante Adams. The season hasn’t gone according to plan but the five-time Pro Bowler is urging his teammates to try and stay positive despite the rough start.
“I think we’ve just got to focus on that as much as possible to keep ourselves in it, keep our minds in it,” Adams said Wednesday. “It’s not healthy to run around here, like I said, with a frown on all day just because we’re losing. The fact of the matter is we are very close to where we want to be, we’re just not quite playing 60 minutes and I think that’s what is contributing to it. But the more we can kind of keep our heads up and keep our minds right, that’ll give us the best chance to at least try to finish the right way.”