One part of Antonio Brownâs brief but idiotic tenure with the Patriots has gotten lost in the sauce.
We remember the unveiling in Miami during Week 2 and that Brown and Tom Brady had instant kismet in the first quarter.
But after going 4-for-4 for 56 yards with a touchdown on his first four throws to Brown, Brady didnât hit him again.
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The next four attempts to get him the ball against what was then a JV-level Miami defense all failed. It was almost completely a ânot on the same pageâ issue on all four of the incompletions.
The point? Donât expect Brown to instantaneously look like the Hall of Fame-level player he was in Pittsburgh just because heâs joined up with Brady.
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The two practiced and played together for five practices and one game. And that was after Brown actually had an offseason and training camp (such as it was) with the Oakland Raiders before blasting his way out of that situation and into New England on September 9.
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But those five practices, I was told last year, were enough to make Brady a lifelong convert. âNear perfect footballâ is the way it was described to me with more than a half-dozen breathtaking ânobody else can do thatâ-type plays.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are â on paper â better than they were on Friday morning. But in Foxboro, a philosophy in Foxboro thatâs long held sway is, âWeâre not collecting talent. Weâre building a team.â
Can Tampa â with Super Bowl-caliber talent â become a team with all its talent?
Are all oars pulling in the same direction within the Bucs hierarchy â Brady and head coach Bruce Arians in particular?
How does a team that doesnât ooze maturity respond to ongoing renovations being overseen by Brady who â despite his resume â is the new guy and may be a short-timer?
Thatâs just one of a few things to chew on this weekend.
Some others?
BRADYâS BENEVOLENT SIDE
Thereâs no denying Brown is a maniac. Thereâs also no getting around the fact that, if his skill set were closer to Brian Tyms, Brady wouldnât have been as keen on getting AB signed, squared away working out at TB12 and hanging with the family at the house in Brookline.
So itâs impossible to look at Bradyâs Father Flanagan âthere are no bad boysâ approach to Brown without some cynicism. He may want the best for this screwed-up guy. But heâs devoted to Brown at least in part because Brown is as good as it gets.
Days after intimidating text messages from Brown to an accuser were revealed, messages which referenced the womanâs children, the Patriots released Brown.
Brady didnât agree with the decision.
Speaking to WEEI a few days after Brownâs release, Brady said, âYou want everyone to become the best they could they could possibly be. And you try to provide leadership and try to care for people. You try to provide whatever you think you can to help them reach their highest potential,â Brady continued. âWhatever situation it is, and Iâve had a lot of teammates over the years. So you invest not just your head but you heart, your soul. Thatâs what makes a great team, thatâs what makes a great brotherhood.âÂ
He was even more strident in a conversation with Jim Gray on Westwood One days after Brownâs release.
âI donât make any personnel decisions,â he said. âI donât decide to sign players. I donât decide to trade then. I donât decide to release them. I donât decide to draft them. I donât get asked, I show up and do my job. Iâm an employee like everyone else. Iâm going to show this week and do the best I can do as quarterback. ⊠Maybe one day I will be an owner and I can make all the decisions that I want.â
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Brady kept up with Brown throughout the 2019 season and visited with him in South Florida the week of the Super Bowl.
Conversations with people close to Brady consistently come back to the theme that, if Brown is getting proper counsel and attention, he is a good person. And cultivating that person doesnât just make him a useful football player but helps him in his personal life to be a good father, citizen, etc. Â
The bottom line is that Antonio Brown has been given chances galore. The list of people whoâve stuck their necks out for him literally has to be in the hundreds and yet he just keeps lopping off heads.
Itâs been 10 months since he was whipping rocks at moving trucks and waving penis-shaped gummy bears at police.
Yet hereâs Brady, backing a guy who â without fail â has found a way to betray peopleâs trust in him.
Brady isnât the first to stick his neck out, of course, just the latest, most obvious and the one with the most at stake.
Heâs clearly emboldened in Tampa to give personnel input in a way he never was here in New England, heâs sticking his neck out for Brown and has persuaded others to do the same. But Brown is an adult with free will and the ability to make his own moronic decisions which he often does.
If and when Brown steps in it down in Tampa, the splatter will land on Brady and everybody else.
If it doesnât, though? If it works and Brown isnât just a great receiver but a good teammate who helps the Bucs achieve and becomes an example of someone who was down, out, derided and demonized but persevered and became a shining example of redemption? That story has to be told as well because there is value in it that goes beyond football.
Iâm not betting on it.
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KEEP AN EAR OUT FOR ARIANS
One difference between Bill Belichick and Bucs coach Bruce Arians is in their willingness to point a finger. Even when Belichick lays blame, he does so in such a veiled and general way, you need a PhD. in BillSpeak to even see the assault.
That wonât be the case with Arians whoâs plain-talkinâ, hip-shootinâ, jesâ folks approach is excellent cover for the frequent occasions when he rolls somebody under the bus.
His just-telling-it-like-it-is approach has a âDonât blame meâŠâ tinge to it and it will be absolutely fascinating to see how he tapdances around the fact Antonio Brown is in Tampa in October after declaring in June Antonio Brown was a bad fit.
The general jist I anticipate? âNot my idea. Weâre doing what Tom wants, trying to make life easier for him. Itâs all about Tom.â
WHAT WOULD BB HAVE DONE?
In the immediate aftermath of Brownâs release, I was reliably told that the decision was unanimous. Within a few days, it was clear to me that it really wasnât. Definitely not on Bradyâs part. And Belichick â while he understood that it was Robert Kraftâs call â was not a fan of it either.
He by no means was leading the charge to let Brown go, as evidenced by the fact he had Brown on the practice field as a full participant on the day he was released, Friday, September 19.
This is what I wrote about it last year after the dust had settled a bit.
I reported last Friday evening that the decision to release Brown was unanimous, that the threatening texts were a âbridge too far.â After more conversations this week, Iâve come to understand that unanimous decision wasnât easily reached. Belichick accepted the decision and understood it. But he was by no means leading the charge to move on â and if Kraft hadnât insisted, Brown would probably still be here.
Which, one can logically conclude, is why Brown made sure to show appreciation for Belichick in social media posts after his release while sending drone strikes at Kraft on Sunday morning.
Why, when asked, âWhat was the last straw?â did Belichick not at least mumble something to Dana Jacobson about the decision being what was best for the football team? Because he isnât sold that it was the best thing for the football team. And the real answer, âRobert is the boss and the heat got too hotâŠâ would have been less prudent than an icy stare. Â
By laying out the way things went down, Iâm not seeing an insurrection against Kraft in the offing.
Brady â as he made very clear â is in, âDonât ask me, I just work hereâŠâ mode. And Belichick has to know that the entire Brown affair has made life more difficult for the owner. They move on.
Here in New England, Belichick and Brady were in lockstep when it came to signing Brown. After Belichick broached the possibility with Kraft, the owner reached out to Brady. According to the recently-released book, âThe Dynastyâ by Jeff Benedict, Brady âappreciated being asked.â
âOne of his biggest frustrations in recent years had been the way key personnel decisions that affected the offense were made without input from him. ⊠It aggravated him that after two decades as the teamâs quarterback, he still wasnât a part of the conversation before important moves were made.â
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Tellingly, it was Kraft that reached out. Not Belichick. Either way, Belichick was dismissive of Brown when asked why he felt Brown wouldnât be an irritant in New England as heâd been in Pittsburgh and Oakland.
"I wasn't in either of those places, so I really can't comment on what did or didn't happen there," Belichick responded.
When it was pointed out that Brownâs disruptiveness was well-documented in each spot, Belichick answered, "It's the same thing you guys said about Randy Moss when we brought him in."
The reason for revisiting recent history â and it is recent even though it feels like 15 years ago â is this: Acquiring Antonio Brown is every bit the bad idea now that I believed it to be a year ago here in New England.