These are just a few of the “Vontaze Burfict” takes that circulated Twitter after Brown’s mid-game antics, and frankly...I’m tired of it. Super tired of it. Antonio Brown has always been a headcase. His issues have existed since long before he
slandered JuJu Smith-Schuster on Twitter, and long before he was knocked out by Burfict. Brown has been difficult since before he even stepped foot on a college football field. Hell, even before he played a snap of high school football.
When Brown was first accused of sexual assault and rape in 2019, Brown’s stepfather, Larry Moss Jr., who helped raise Brown between the ages of 5 and 17, went on
record stating that he was “surprised that it took them this long to figure him out. Because he’s been this way since he’s been 12 years old.’’ In the
pieceby USA Today, Moss continued stating that he’d always known Brown was abusive towards women, and that Brown “just feels like he can have whatever he wants. So it doesn’t surprise me that this kind of allegation came out about him.” Moss knew this about Brown since before he was a teenager, but sure, we, the fans, know better than the man who raised him.
In high school, the only football scholarship Brown received out of high school was to Florida International University. Did Brown accept this opportunity to turn his life around and become a better person? No. Brown got into an
altercation with a security guard at the university before he ever took the field for the Golden Panthers. How bad was the altercation? Well, bad enough for the school to expel him. When school officials informed Brown of their decision to expel him, they told him “We’re going to say you were never here.”
Even after this, Brown continued to be troublesome for coaches and college football programs that gave him a chance. Per
reports, even after being given a chance to be a walk-on at Central Michigan University by
Zach Azzanni, currently the wide receivers coach for the Denver Broncos, Brown would repeatedly show up late to practices and meetings. He’s clearly had an issue with discipline well before he was in the NFL.
Several NFL draft scouts labeled Brown’s biggest concerns as his character, prima donna attitude, lack of work ethic, and constant lapses in concentration. That sounds an awful lot like the Antonio Brown we see today.