Whether it’s been his intention or not, Antonio Brown has dominated the Raiders news cycle nearly every day for a month now.
However you feel about Brown, it has been a challenge to sort through all the stories, some of which have been conflicting, and get to what has really being going on between AB, the team, and the league.
How much of the drama around Brown has been media driven and how much is real?
If you tuned into HBO’s Hard Knocks on Tuesday night, it certainly looked like the Raiders have everything under control. Gruden talked about how the Raiders have known about Brown’s foot and helmet issues, and questioned why many are making such a big deal of the circumstances surrounding AB.
“We’ve known the whole time,” Gruden said the most recent Hard Knocks episode. “He had frostbite. He took four or five days to get checked out, and we knew about the grievance since the first day of OTAs, which we did. I don’t know what the story, what the f— the story is around here… He’s tried everything, really. I give the guy credit for standing up for what he believes in. Everybody else does it in this country.”
That’s all fine and well, as Gruden is clearly the “good cop” in all this, but to believe nothing has been strained between Brown and the Raiders would be naive.
Why else would general manager Mike Mayock have issued the public “all in or all out” statement that he did to Brown on Sunday evening?
Gruden can play coy all he wants, and that’s probably a good idea since he’s the one working next to AB. But the fact that the organization had to call out Brown publicly means there was definitely a breakdown in the relationship somewhere. No way do you risk taking a strong public stance on a player like Brown over simple housekeeping matters.
Credit to Mayock for reading the situation well enough to know Brown would respond to his message – as it was clear in the 24 hours after the Mayock statement that both Brown and his agent took the general manager’s words seriously.
Now that the foot and helmet problems seem to be resolved, let’s see if AB can go back to staying in the news the old fashioned way.
twitter: @raidersbeat
What does it mean the foot and helmet issues have been resolved. I thought the helmet issue was still pending, util maybe Friday.
What does it mean the foot and helmet issues have been resolved. I thought the helmet issue was still pending, util maybe Friday. NO, I haven’t said this!!!!!!!!!!!