Trip over. I can cover that tomorrow. Today—tonight—I want to talk about Antonio Brown. For starters: That man needs help. He’s not right. He’s been not right for a while and it keeps getting worse. However, because his antics are not harming anyone it doesn’t seem like people are willing to take his gestures as a cry for help or evidence that help is needed. Tom Brady came out today and said his boy needs help, and hopefully the famously fickle sports world will listen because TOM spoke. That is largely how this stuff goes, mind you. Once the narrative is decided about a particular person, that narrative is the way until someone more newsworthy and powerful changes the narrative.
Let me take this moment to also point out that the only person who suffered anything negative from the Washington debacle is not even a coach associated with the team. That too follows narrative. Owners are basically untouchable. Nevermind that the team was taken out of the man’s hands… They handed the reigns to his wife and he is still making team announcements. Most recently the WFT owner announced they’d be announcing the team name in February—likely the day after the Superbowl or the day of…
But I digress. Antonio Brown needs real help. CTE cannot be determined in a living subject as of yet, but that doesn’t stop us from recognizing the man isn’t right and has absorbed a ton of trauma. Let’s get him help. The sports world was fine with Calvin Ridley getting help. We straight cheered Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, but Brown remains the villain? Even in the shadow of Big Ben and his all but forgotten sexual assault allegations Brown is the bad guy in all of this and people are cheering his latest departure.
What I mean to say by all this is that sports is always about the narrative and the narrative shaped around players is particularly toxic. Things are amplified and reshaped and outsiders are anxious to take advantage of these young (primarily) men with money. I wish they had better judgement, but they don’t. I wish the ones with better stories were the media focus, but they rarely are. Such is the sports life.