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00:00:00Former NFL All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown has been arrested.
00:00:13The former NFL player was extradited from Dubai to New Jersey.
00:00:17Brown will now face a top count of attempted second-degree murder.
00:00:22Bro, that's a serious charge. Like, what the f***?
00:00:26That s*** is crazy to me, bro. I'm not gonna lie.
00:00:27What do y'all think is gonna happen to Antonio Brown?
00:00:31Well before his story took the turns, we now know.
00:00:35Antonio Brown was the kind of player and personality people couldn't get enough of.
00:00:41Antonio Brown was probably the best player I've seen live in a football game.
00:00:44Antonio Brown was something else.
00:00:46He was fearless.
00:00:47Electrifying.
00:00:48There seemed to be no limit to what he was gonna be able to do.
00:00:53So, what went wrong? What happened?
00:00:55I mean, he was on top of the world.
00:00:58Police in Florida are looking to arrest Antonio Brown.
00:01:01He threw furniture off a high-rise balcony.
00:01:03Rape and two other instances of sexual assault.
00:01:06This is a loose cannon.
00:01:07Look at her. She's a f***ing lost cause. Look at her.
00:01:10You know what they say. More money, more problems.
00:01:13I think the ABU persona overtook him.
00:01:16Attention is a drug and everybody's on it.
00:01:18The devil gonna try to bring you down when you get closer to your goals.
00:01:21I never wanted to open up the paper one day and see something drastically went wrong with him.
00:01:29Oh my God, he has a gun.
00:01:31Oh my God.
00:01:32Get down, get down, get down.
00:01:34Shots were fired.
00:01:35Wait a minute, what happened?
00:01:36We have absolutely reached rock bottom.
00:01:39Right now, he's probably the biggest cautionary tale about the NFL and fame.
00:01:44The chase for greatness can change you, and sometimes in ways you don't see coming.
00:01:56I think to a lot of people, Antonio Brown remains a mystery.
00:02:03Nobody has that silver bullet final answer to the question of what happened to Antonio?
00:02:10What's wrong with Antonio?
00:02:12Antonio Brown is really dangerous to speculate about people's mental health.
00:02:18We do know that he played a very violent sport that leaves a lot of people debilitated from hits to the head.
00:02:26So I don't know if it was one hit.
00:02:28I don't know if it was a lifetime of hits.
00:02:29I don't know if it was any hits.
00:02:31What we're seeing is somebody with some real troubles.
00:02:35Whether a hero, a villain, or perhaps somewhere in between, everyone's got an origin story.
00:02:44To search for who Antonio Brown is, you have to take it back to the beginning, where it all started.
00:02:51I grew up in Liberty City, Miami.
00:02:59My grandma moved here from the Bahamas, like, 1900s.
00:03:03Antonio Tavares Brown was born on July 10, 1988, at a time when the term,
00:03:09Welcome to Miami, was a bit more sinister than a song by Will Smith.
00:03:13Growing up, I got grazed with a bullet, like, right by my ear.
00:03:20And that was just a part of the neighborhood.
00:03:22People really don't understand, Miami is not just South Beach.
00:03:26It has its rough and tough areas.
00:03:29During the 90s, when Antonio was growing up in Liberty City, it's a tough place.
00:03:38We have three people shot.
00:03:42Two of them are known drug dealers on this corner.
00:03:45It was a rough upbringing.
00:03:47He grew up in a lot of poverty.
00:03:52John Doe gang was considered one of the most notorious gangs that ever was a part of the city of Miami.
00:03:58The John Doe gang members were violent cocaine suppliers for Liberty City.
00:04:03And some kids, they don't know how to decipher, is this the way I should go?
00:04:09They see the money, they see the cars, and some of them want to be a part of that.
00:04:16Growing up for me, it was either you play football or be a drug dealer or probably do something wrong,
00:04:21so I had to narrow down my focus right away.
00:04:23One thing a lot of people don't realize about those of us who come from poverty and dysfunction and violence
00:04:29is that you carry that trauma with you every day.
00:04:33It is a traumatic existence.
00:04:35Even if you're not shot at or chased or robbed, you're surrounded by that.
00:04:39It's the water you drink.
00:04:40It's the air you breathe.
00:04:41And that just has a real cumulative effect on how you think and the choices you make.
00:04:49Football is a game that helps you take your mind off the trauma and the pressure of the environment you're in
00:04:55or what's going around you.
00:04:57So for me, competition and sports was always a part of my life.
00:05:01Antonio was the kind of person and player that I would say needed football.
00:05:06It's about the equivalent, but about food, air, and water.
00:05:12There was an escape of reality.
00:05:14Once you put on the helmet and hit the field, you don't think about what's going on in the world.
00:05:19So football is presented, generally speaking, as something that can save souls,
00:05:24but very specifically for people who grow up playing football in South Florida.
00:05:27From Dade County up to Palm Beach, the thought very much so is we are using football
00:05:32as a way to make sure that we keep these young men out of trouble.
00:05:35Antonio Brown's mother and father, they separated as he was growing up.
00:05:41His father was chasing his dream of becoming a professional football player.
00:05:46I grew up seeing my dad be a good football player.
00:05:49He was like the greatest player in the AFL over Kurt Warner's.
00:05:53And I witnessed him.
00:05:54I've been in his games.
00:05:55I was seeing what he was like and why he didn't go to the NFL.
00:05:58You know what I mean?
00:05:58So for me, I was going to do it better.
00:06:01Antonio really looked up to his father.
00:06:03I think that was a big push for him.
00:06:05He wanted to go out there and just work hard and just let everything else take care of himself.
00:06:11I was a high school kid who was raised with my mom.
00:06:15My dad was always away.
00:06:16My mom, she got so much stuff going around her.
00:06:19It's like she really couldn't focus on like what I needed to do.
00:06:22So I had to become a man early.
00:06:24When you are a product of a broken home, you have a lot of questions about whether people are really there for you.
00:06:34Because of that, you're going to be looking for that in any of the relationships that you have even outside of the home.
00:06:40I remember the first time I met Antonio Brown.
00:06:45I was helping coach our junior varsity team at the time.
00:06:50And Tony walked up and said, Coach, I'm here to play football at Miami-Norland Senior High.
00:06:57I said, you came in the middle of the season.
00:06:59What do you think?
00:07:00We supposed to just drop everything and put you in?
00:07:02I said, you know, and I don't think he liked that.
00:07:05He didn't like the fact that I wasn't like, yo, come on, let's go.
00:07:08Let's go play right now.
00:07:10So he didn't come back until the following year.
00:07:15But when he came back, he took off.
00:07:24He wasn't the biggest guy in the world.
00:07:26He was slim.
00:07:27So an assistant coach by the name of James Upton gave him a nickname Boney Tony.
00:07:33Ken started calling him Boney Tony.
00:07:35He had a little dance that he used to do to it.
00:07:40Tony's size played a big part of his football career.
00:07:43He wanted to let you know, hey, I don't care how big or how small I am.
00:07:48I'm tougher than you.
00:07:49I'm rougher than you.
00:07:51And you're not going to stop me from doing what I need to do on this field.
00:07:55His drive was what stuck out an awful lot.
00:07:58Even from when we had to punish him for certain things, you know, we were running him up and
00:08:07down the entire field.
00:08:09And it got to the point where Tony said, coach, y'all can run me.
00:08:14Well, guess what?
00:08:15I don't care.
00:08:16I'm going to continue to run.
00:08:18And then he said, you want to know why?
00:08:20Because I'm a monster.
00:08:24As Tony began to get a little bit older, it was him against the world.
00:08:29His mom remarried, and now you have a new father who's not your father in the home.
00:08:38There's friction there.
00:08:39You're feeling isolated because, you know, your adulation from your mom is being split
00:08:45with someone else.
00:08:46There was times where I dropped him off to his mom's house, and then there was times
00:08:50when I dropped him off to his grandmother's house.
00:08:53Sometimes he would go home with one of the players.
00:08:56That was pretty much his way of life.
00:08:59And at a young age, it'll harden you.
00:09:05After Antonio graduated from high school, he had put out a few applications to a few
00:09:10schools here and there who had interest in him.
00:09:13But solely because of the academic and him not passing that entrance exam, he had to somewhat
00:09:19be pushed aside.
00:09:20As he was waiting to get a decision from those other schools, he found out they had open
00:09:25tryouts at FIU, and Tony knew that he could play at that level.
00:09:31But things happened, and it didn't work out like it should have.
00:09:37He was on school campus.
00:09:40The dorm supervisor had some words with Antonio and another young man, and then Tony and them
00:09:48left.
00:09:49As they were walking across the campus, campus police approached him.
00:09:53I guess it got kind of loud.
00:09:56The other young man that was with Tony pushed the officer away, and Tony's instinct was to run.
00:10:04That started a chase throughout the school.
00:10:07Vice obtained campus police records from this 2007 incident, which showed that 19-year-old
00:10:13Antonio Brown and a teammate were involved in a physical incident with officers.
00:10:17Witnesses stated that Brown fled police and football staffers twice, even removing his clothing
00:10:23to disguise his appearance.
00:10:25A place like Liberty City will ingrain you with ways of thinking and experiences that
00:10:31you can carry for the rest of your life.
00:10:33A lot of people look at those of us from these neighborhoods and say, why are they doing these
00:10:37things?
00:10:38Why would you run from the police?
00:10:39That doesn't make any sense.
00:10:41Well, it makes all the sense in the world if you're from that environment.
00:10:44Finally, I guess they were obtained, and then I was called.
00:10:51I spoke to the campus police.
00:10:54He said, Coach, I don't ever want to see that kid on this campus ever again.
00:10:58The way you handle adversity is the way you're going to get through life, because we all
00:11:02got adversity.
00:11:04Life's not perfect.
00:11:05You know what I mean?
00:11:06I done been through so much, but you know, you've got to keep it positive on your name
00:11:10and don't put no scrutiny and just let you be great.
00:11:12His thing was, Coach, I still want to go to school.
00:11:15I know there's a bad situation, but I want to go to school.
00:11:18Can you please help me?
00:11:21And just so happened, I had a buddy that I grew up with, and at that particular time,
00:11:27he was coaching at Central Michigan University.
00:11:30Me and Coach Brooks played high school football together, so there was an intimacy among us
00:11:39there, and he knew it would be the right fit for Antonio.
00:11:44He said, hey, you get him up here by this date, he can start working out with the team,
00:11:48and we can give him a spot as a preferred walk-out.
00:11:53Friends and family, put him on a plane.
00:11:56We got him situated, you know, got him in the dorms.
00:11:59I think that when you come from a tough environment, economic environment, it may seem like you
00:12:05don't have a lot to lose.
00:12:06You actually do.
00:12:07You lose.
00:12:08Because this is all you got.
00:12:10So anytime you meet an athlete, including Antonio Brown, when it comes to trust, they're
00:12:16entrusting you with their lives.
00:12:18So they're not going to hand that over very easily.
00:12:21You got to prove yourself to them.
00:12:22And once they earn their trust, then they'll start to begin to trust you, because they know
00:12:28you're the one that's given them an opportunity to get out of the situation that they're in.
00:12:35Central Michigan is also a place that's in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
00:12:40There's no mountains there, and there's nothing pleasant about it.
00:12:42There's not a lot of distractions.
00:12:44Let's just say that.
00:12:45So I benefited him.
00:12:47Showing up at Central Michigan as a walk-on, knowing he has three weeks to get a scholarship,
00:12:52and now you're in survival mode, and if you don't do this, you're back in the streets of,
00:12:56you know, Miami.
00:12:57He called me one day, and he said, Coach.
00:13:00His voice started cracking a little bit, and he said, I've done exactly what y'all asked
00:13:05me to do up here, and they're going to give me a scholarship.
00:13:08For me, you know, going to college was a time that changed my life.
00:13:13That was the best thing that happened, because I was able to leave Miami.
00:13:16I went to Central Michigan.
00:13:19Then the rest was history.
00:13:22Now the Chippewas on the return.
00:13:25And this is Antonio Brown.
00:13:27When I started working with Antonio Brown at Central Michigan, whether it was with him
00:13:32specifically with special teams and punt returning, his willingness to win and succeed and put
00:13:39his name out there was paramount.
00:13:41It meant the world to him.
00:13:44Tony jumped on the scene as a freshman, his sophomore year, his junior year.
00:13:48He just kept getting better and better and better.
00:13:51He brought a flavor from Miami-Dade County up to the Midwest, where that kind of bravado,
00:14:01persona, energy is a little different.
00:14:04He was very fast, very quick.
00:14:06Antonio Brown will go the distance.
00:14:09Touchdown, Central Michigan.
00:14:11Let me tell you something.
00:14:12You're scoring a bunch of touchdowns.
00:14:14You make a lot of friends in a hurry.
00:14:15The stage that he was on at Central Michigan, I think, was perfect for him.
00:14:20They had a very good team.
00:14:21They were successful, big time, with Tony and the pieces that they had already had there.
00:14:26He always did above and beyond.
00:14:29During practices at 6 o'clock in the morning, he was in.
00:14:33And toward the end of practice, as things finished, he'd stay afterwards and run routes
00:14:37and catch balls from the quarterback.
00:14:40I was not Antonio Brown's position coach, but I also brought him there.
00:14:45So I could speak to him in a way that nobody else there could.
00:14:50You had to come at him a certain way.
00:14:52He didn't like anybody talking down to him.
00:14:54You know, speak to me.
00:14:55Don't speak at me.
00:14:57If you were rough around the edges with him, he was going to let you know about it.
00:15:01If he showed up with a big smile early in the morning, you already know.
00:15:05He's in a great mood.
00:15:06He's there to work.
00:15:07If he showed up with a frown on his face, he was still going to work.
00:15:12I heard one of our coaches say this about Antonio Brown.
00:15:15He says, we've had a lot of really good players around here, and I've loved those guys Monday
00:15:20through Friday and hated him on Saturday.
00:15:23But we've had guys like Antonio who could be difficult during the week, but we love him
00:15:27on Saturday.
00:15:28We need more guys like that.
00:15:30People knew all along he was a smart kid.
00:15:32He just had a lot of challenges, you know, and a lot of pain growing up.
00:15:37But that pain can be flipped for energy.
00:15:42Tony was a kid, even in high school.
00:15:44He just needed a shot.
00:15:45So we said if Tony could get a shot after college, he would be all right.
00:15:53I'd see him periodically.
00:15:56It might have been Christmas Eve.
00:15:58We had breakfast at a Denny's, and he couldn't stress enough that he wanted to get drafted.
00:16:04When you're doing your scouting on a player to draft the player, you're going to go into
00:16:14his background, figure out what happened at Central Michigan, talk to coaches like a Paul
00:16:19Valero.
00:16:19The process of being drafted into the NFL, it's just, you're under a microscope.
00:16:25There's the evaluation of you physically.
00:16:28Once you get past that, now it's the character side.
00:16:31Habits, work ethic, are you mentally strong?
00:16:35Are you competitive?
00:16:36Because at the end of the day, you're signing someone to millions of dollars, and they have
00:16:40to perform for you.
00:16:42When you're evaluating a player going into the NFL, people take into consideration that
00:16:47you're playing in the Mid-American Conference.
00:16:50It's no knock on Central Michigan, but it's not one of the big premier conferences.
00:16:54Smaller player, small school.
00:16:56You know, he wasn't the normal five-star player that you see sign with an SEC school and play
00:17:02on a national stage.
00:17:04He kind of came up really through the back door of college football, so there wasn't a
00:17:09lot of credibility he had coming into the draft.
00:17:12So, in the NFL draft, now there's seven rounds.
00:17:20I actually watched every round to see if he was going to get picked up, and it just so
00:17:26happened, he got picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:17:29Somebody came up and told me, hey, the Steelers just picked up Antonio in six rounds.
00:17:36I said, really?
00:17:36I was just happy for him.
00:17:39A six-round pick often will not make the roster of a team.
00:17:43If you get lucky, you find an Antonio Brown, and you keep him at bay in the NFL.
00:17:50It's not about where you get drafted.
00:17:52There's plenty of guys that get drafted early and can't play dead in Western.
00:17:55The Steelers was a good environment for him.
00:18:01Close camp, household name, family-oriented.
00:18:05Great organization, you know, with a great head coach, Coach Tomlin, and they got a culture
00:18:10there of looking after guys.
00:18:13I think Tomlin posed as a father figure to him, you know, somewhat of what he got when
00:18:19he was in high school.
00:18:20When he was at Central Michigan, he had Coach Valero there to make sure he was going to
00:18:26see things through.
00:18:28Mike Tomlin believes in developing the person, not just the player.
00:18:31And so, you know, for a guy like Antonio Brown, who may have needed a little bit of hand-holding,
00:18:36a guy like Mike Tomlin is a good coach for someone like that.
00:18:39I feel like when I went to the Steelers, Mike Tomlin was that father figure for me, like,
00:18:43outside of coach.
00:18:44And he was a guy who always used to try to talk to me about things, even when I didn't
00:18:48understand him.
00:18:50Once I saw him and talked with him, I knew I would have success.
00:18:53Being part of an organization like the Steelers is being part of a family.
00:18:56Mike Tomlin really preaches that.
00:18:58He embodies that.
00:18:59And he really made sure that the players who come through really do as well.
00:19:04A lot of the locker room culture was really run by the players, a veteran player council.
00:19:09There are a lot of players who have been there for a long time, right?
00:19:12And they're the locker room leaders.
00:19:13They're the ones that the younger players look up to.
00:19:15They model their behavior after if they're doing it right.
00:19:18And Mike Tomlin wanted it that way because he felt like these were adults and not kids.
00:19:22But in the same instance, he really wanted to be there for them.
00:19:24His door was open for them.
00:19:25And he would talk to players all the time about their families, about their lives,
00:19:28about the issues they may be going through.
00:19:32When you're drafting a player that late in the draft, you're probably not expecting a whole lot.
00:19:36Maybe he'll make the team and contribute.
00:19:38Nobody really knew that he would become what he did.
00:19:40And he just needed a foot in the door.
00:19:43And Tony kicked the door in.
00:19:52I mean, life is made of moments.
00:19:55You live for those moments that you dream about.
00:19:57As a kid playing football, you dream about, like, yo, I want to win the Super Bowl.
00:20:01You know, I want to lead the NFL in touchdowns.
00:20:03For me, those always were my goal.
00:20:05From high school to college, Antonio Brown was searching to carve out his own path.
00:20:10And his hard work paid off.
00:20:13Drafted by one of the NFL's premier franchises, Antonio seized his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and ran with it.
00:20:20When Antonio Brown signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers, late-round pick, you're signing a three-year deal, around $1.3 million.
00:20:28Pretty modest signing bonus of about $70,000 or so.
00:20:32That's not the huge money that a lot of these star interval players are accustomed to.
00:20:35But if you're Antonio Brown, you've really worked your way from the bottom into NFL status.
00:20:41That's a great contract.
00:20:42That's huge money for a player coming up.
00:20:45When he first came to Pittsburgh, the Steelers were loaded at wide receiver.
00:20:48They had a lot of star players.
00:20:49Antonio Brown was really perceived as maybe your fourth or fifth wide receiver on the team.
00:20:54And then a kickoff punt returner.
00:20:55You know, special teams, that was where his value was.
00:20:58I started covering Antonio when I was working for ESPN.
00:21:01I remember him being very precocious, very personable.
00:21:07He's got a very white smile, so his teeth are blindingly white.
00:21:11I do remember that about him.
00:21:14And, you know, I just remember him bursting on the scene.
00:21:17He quickly made himself known with his performance.
00:21:22By Antonio Brown's second year, it stamped his mark on the team.
00:21:26And he was becoming a superstar.
00:21:28And then gradually, the more and more he plays, the clearer that he gets that you have one of the best players in the NFL.
00:21:38And then it also becomes clear that much in the tradition of great wide receivers, this guy is a character.
00:21:45Yeah, Antonio Brown was something else.
00:21:47His extroverted personality on the field, dance he would do when he'd catch the ball.
00:21:56He knew that's what people wanted to see, and he gave it to them.
00:22:00Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown, that relationship was perfect for both of them.
00:22:05Ben Roethlisberger saw what was there in Antonio Brown and the playmaking ability he had and would go to him frequently.
00:22:10And I think Antonio Brown really appreciated that.
00:22:13So I think they needed each other, they respected each other, and on the field knew the value that each brought to the other.
00:22:20In 2012, the Steelers signed Antonio Brown to a five-year, $42 million contract.
00:22:26At the time, they were getting ahead of what they saw was a brilliant player who's going to cost a lot more if they waited a year or two.
00:22:33But if you're Antonio Brown, I think in many ways, he probably saw it as not just about money, it's confirmation.
00:22:40That chip on his shoulder, I think, was real.
00:22:42His work ethic, I think, was driven from that.
00:22:44He wanted to prove himself.
00:22:46He had this drive to succeed that was unparalleled.
00:22:48A $42 million contract will turn your whole life upside down in good ways and in bad ways, especially when you come from having nothing.
00:22:58You've got money for the first time in your life, and you're supposed to be able to operate normally.
00:23:05How does that work?
00:23:07The money is fun and big, and so you're spending that, and it gives you a big head because you have so much money.
00:23:13It's like you can't go wrong.
00:23:14You can't overspend on anything, right?
00:23:17And so that obviously has its own entrapments.
00:23:20He was somebody who did live an extravagant lifestyle.
00:23:23The choices that people make who once were poor, a lot of them are predicated on not wanting that feeling of being poor.
00:23:32It feels really bad to pull up to someplace and everybody looks at your car because the side is rusted out.
00:23:38So AB just going to roll up in the old school Rolls Royce with a driver?
00:23:42It feels really bad to go to school and have people make fun of your sneakers because they've got holes in them.
00:23:47And so when you get some money, you're going to make sure not only are they not going to make fun of them, but they're going to admire them.
00:23:54And I'm going to feel good about myself.
00:24:00One year he showed up in a helicopter, literally pulled up into like a grass field adjacent to the college, and we're all there waiting on all the players to show up.
00:24:08And then you get word like, hey, Antonio's about to be here, but he's not showing up in this driveway right here.
00:24:13He's going to be a half mile down the way in a field in a black helicopter.
00:24:16You want to make a statement with coming in by helicopter?
00:24:19I just want to give you all the time to be ready to go.
00:24:21You need time to go.
00:24:22It's what time of year.
00:24:23Watching Antonio's career unfold, it was a joy.
00:24:28It was a lot of pride in being able to help him get to where he needed to be.
00:24:32By 2015, Antonio Brown was arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL and on the fast track to the Hall of Fame.
00:24:40In his sixth season in the league, he had a career-best 1,834 receiving yards, the fifth most of all time in a single season.
00:24:49He seemed unstoppable until one moment changed everything.
00:24:56One of the wilder games I covered was a playoff game.
00:25:00Steelers are at Cincinnati.
00:25:01It's very close.
00:25:02It's an intense atmosphere.
00:25:04Two teams that absolutely hate each other.
00:25:06The Steelers-Bengals rivalry goes a long way back.
00:25:09The Bengals and the Steelers don't like each other.
00:25:12We're going to get this!
00:25:13I love Pittsburgh, but they're not Cincinnati.
00:25:16I still love her despite her team preference.
00:25:19There was so much hype and anticipation because this was by far the NFL's best rivalry at the time.
00:25:26Pretty much in every game they had played, someone got hurt, someone got fined.
00:25:31Everybody knows that this is what has happened in these games between these two teams for over a decade.
00:25:38Yeah.
00:25:41So, in Cincinnati, Steelers are down.
00:25:44Final minute, they have the ball.
00:25:46You see Antonio Brown go over the middle and it's like slow motion.
00:25:50You see him about to go for the ball.
00:25:53Ben Roethlisberger delivers it.
00:25:54And then Vontaze Burfeet, he just came in that helmet.
00:26:04And Antonio, when he got hit, I mean, his arms just flew backward.
00:26:09It was not a pretty sight.
00:26:12It was a high-state game, and that particular hit could happen on any play.
00:26:18And Tony knows, and other receivers know, that can happen.
00:26:21As he got hit, you can see the body go limp, and he was already unconscious.
00:26:31And then also, he hits the back of his head on the turf, which can be kind of a secondary injury process that happens.
00:26:39There were some gasps in the press box.
00:26:43Even though you couldn't really hear the hit, you could feel it.
00:26:46It was sort of soul-stripping, you know?
00:26:48You're dealing with the reality of a late game.
00:26:52It's very close.
00:26:53It's an intense atmosphere.
00:26:56But then there's this human element of, is this player okay?
00:27:00Is he going to get up?
00:27:01That was my first instinct.
00:27:02You need to get up.
00:27:03Tony was always one to get up.
00:27:06We considered him a rubber band.
00:27:08You hit him, he's going to jump back up.
00:27:10He don't want somebody to be able to say, you know what, I knocked Antonio Brown out of the game.
00:27:15He's going to get back in the game.
00:27:17And I think he lives his life that way as well.
00:27:21Are you out before you even hit the turf?
00:27:22Yeah.
00:27:23Yeah.
00:27:24Oh, boy.
00:27:25Yeah, because he hit me right in the head right before I hit the turf.
00:27:29Yeah.
00:27:29Memory loss?
00:27:30A little bit.
00:27:31You know, my coach was telling me I was smiling and talking to him like they thought it was regular.
00:27:34But I didn't recall any of it.
00:27:36What I thought at the time, which is kind of random, but the movie Rocky IV.
00:27:45Where Apollo Creed goes down to his eventual death.
00:27:55Just seeing the way his head moved in every direction and thinking about what was going on in his brain.
00:28:04How his brain was being rattled in there.
00:28:08If you had to rate concussions on the spectrum of, you know, mild or moderate or severe, I would probably rate that as one of the severe ones.
00:28:16Where the most force and the most injury to the brain is that diagonal head impact that Antonio Brown had.
00:28:22The worst part of that concussion after Burfik hit you as well.
00:28:25Yeah, probably your energy, you know, your balance.
00:28:28You know, when you get a concussion, doing the eyes test with the symptoms usually make you real dizzy, lightheaded, and wanting to sleep a lot.
00:28:36The discussions around concussions, I would say that it really hit a fever pitch around the CBA negotiations in 2010.
00:28:44Players were fighting for their rights.
00:28:46So I remember it being intensified around that time.
00:28:48When Antonio Brown takes a hit like he did, a star player with helmet-to-helmet contact like that, it reintroduces the discussion all over again.
00:28:56I think we all had our antennas on and were so concerned that this kind of moment would happen.
00:29:04And this was the game where it was going to happen.
00:29:07And it happened to Antonio Brown.
00:29:10A lot of fans and even some of the media do speculate that when Antonio Brown took that hit from Vontaze Burfik that he wasn't quite the same afterwards.
00:29:24After the devastating Vontaze Burfik hit, the legend of Antonio Brown only grew.
00:29:30And as he continued to put up Hall of Fame numbers, he was still searching for something beyond the end zone.
00:29:35The spotlight.
00:29:36The idea of self-branding was becoming really big with football players.
00:29:40Antonio Brown believed, hey, I know I'm not going to last forever in the league.
00:29:42No one does.
00:29:43And I'm seeing this big opportunity here and I'm going to take it.
00:29:47He was doing commercials.
00:29:49When I think about Antonio Brown's game, he got it all on lock.
00:29:53Haircut.
00:29:54Check.
00:29:54Pushing his persona and things of that nature.
00:29:57In his prime, he had it going from the marketing standpoint.
00:30:00I mean, he had Pepsi.
00:30:01Antonio, what have you got in mind?
00:30:03Bit of a throwback.
00:30:05Pizza Hut.
00:30:06AB, is this it?
00:30:06He had a great smile, so he marketed that.
00:30:11I mean, he was on top of the world.
00:30:12When you're hot, man, you got to go get it.
00:30:15And when there's money to be got, you don't know how long it's going to last.
00:30:18So you got to keep that momentum going.
00:30:20In the NFL, if you're not a marquee quarterback, it's hard to get endorsements.
00:30:23It is not easy to get big money.
00:30:25Peyton Manning was like in every other commercial.
00:30:28That's okay, Wendy.
00:30:29That was a good carry.
00:30:30You're still the man.
00:30:31You're the man.
00:30:32You know, maybe Aaron Rodgers.
00:30:33It's the perfect thing for game time with the guys.
00:30:36You'd see Ben Roethlisberger pop up.
00:30:39I want to head back inside.
00:30:40But it was rare to see a black NFL player.
00:30:44And it seemed that the NFL was embracing that, given AB's endorsement deals and the Madden cover.
00:30:50Being on the cover of Madden football is an indication that you have reached upper echelons
00:31:00of stardom.
00:31:01The idea that he was on there with no helmet, the part that makes that interesting is not
00:31:05simply that it allows for his face to be seen, but it is also a reflection of the fact
00:31:11that he has been known as the sort of guy who would be there without his helmet on.
00:31:15Look at me right now.
00:31:17And that is a reflection of who the man was.
00:31:19When I talked to AB about being on the cover of Madden, he talked a lot about wanting
00:31:22to inspire people.
00:31:24His work ethic is incredible.
00:31:26And that has been an inspiration to a lot of young people, a lot of adults.
00:31:31All this, and he would be like, Coach, I'm doing this just so I can feed my family, so
00:31:36I can make sure we are good to go forever.
00:31:41The problem is that when you're at that stage, you live in a glass bowl, everybody sees you.
00:31:47You're not invincible, and you're not invisible, and you can't afford to make mistakes.
00:31:54And the more that he realized that he's special in the league and that he had arrived, it did
00:32:03go from Antonio Brown to the AB character.
00:32:07I do think it exerted a pressure on him to feel like he had to be this character.
00:32:16I mean, it was literally the AB show, minute to minute.
00:32:20And I feel like because of that, there were times that he struggled to go back to Antonio Brown.
00:32:26I think his image was very important to him because he had done something incredible,
00:32:33and he was trying to balance these impulses that he had for attention and for being his
00:32:39own person and doing his own thing to going with the team and being part of the squad.
00:32:44Attention is a drug, and everybody's on it.
00:32:47The Steelers culture is something that is beloved by players who have gone through that system
00:32:54and believed in that culture and believe that the culture is about the team first and players
00:32:59second.
00:33:00As the veterans slowly left the team, retired, that truly changed that leadership in the
00:33:05Steelers locker room.
00:33:06And I think when you have a guy like Antonio Brown who really thrived on being led, I think
00:33:12to keep him sort of on the straight and narrow, when those reins sort of get loosened, I think
00:33:16that may have had an effect on his sort of performance and behavior.
00:33:21After a game in 2017, we're in the press box and we're trying to file our stories, and
00:33:27I'm getting emails from editors saying, hey, like, Antonio Brown's on Facebook broadcasting
00:33:32live from the locker room.
00:33:33The Steelers culture is really tight-knit.
00:33:36Their locker room, especially with sacrosanct.
00:33:38You can't live broadcast what the head coach is saying when he's addressing the team after
00:33:42a game, because a lot of times that head coach thinks that what he's saying is confined to
00:33:47that room and not to be broadcast publicly.
00:33:50And Mike Tomlin had called the Patriots these assholes.
00:33:54That was a private moment for Mike Tomlin.
00:33:56That's like a betrayal, right?
00:33:58That's like a family member giving away your secret online.
00:34:01Antonio Brown decided to go live on Facebook for 17 minutes.
00:34:05Probably not the best idea.
00:34:08That was the first time I started to think about mental health, wondering, like, is that
00:34:14narcissism?
00:34:15Is that bipolar?
00:34:17Like, there was something that was not right.
00:34:20Mike Tomlin came out swinging in his press conference, held Antonio Brown's feet to the
00:34:24fire, held him accountable.
00:34:25That created more negative response to anything he did, I think, from Mike Tomlin.
00:34:31And the reason why is it violated the Steelers' culture.
00:34:34You don't violate that locker room.
00:34:36Antonio Brown knew better.
00:34:37He should have known better.
00:34:38And he did apologize for it later.
00:34:40I was really sorry about that moment.
00:34:43Got a little excited.
00:34:44But the deed was done, right?
00:34:45And I think it really sort of exhibited that mindset that was continually developing with
00:34:50him.
00:34:50You know, I never meant to embarrass the organization, to put my teammates feeling a certain way
00:34:55or misrepresent myself.
00:34:57The Steelers huddled up and had to figure out a fine assessment for Antonio Brown.
00:35:01$10,000 isn't overly steep, considering that it was a pretty bad violation.
00:35:06A $10,000 fine is just, you know, it's something that Antonio Brown goes back to and laughs about.
00:35:11Like, I can't believe I did something so silly.
00:35:12I can't wait until I figure out what I'm going to do next week on social media now.
00:35:16You know, it's like, it's not a deterrent.
00:35:19I'm a good guy with a good heart and got good intention.
00:35:22And it was a mistake.
00:35:23And I'm going to move forward from it.
00:35:25No matter what happens with a player, it's still a production league.
00:35:30Nobody produced on the field like Antonio Brown.
00:35:33The Steelers go on to sign Brown, give him the contract he's been wanting.
00:35:39It was $68 million and $19 million guaranteed.
00:35:44It's really telling that he got a big contract right after that video episode, right?
00:35:48A few weeks later, he's making more money than anyone else.
00:35:50And I think for Antonio Brown, it was just further, further verification, right?
00:35:54That, look, I'm bigger than the game and that there's nothing anyone can do.
00:35:58You know what they say, more money, more problems, right?
00:36:00And so now that you've got this big contract, you start interacting with more people.
00:36:05That includes, you know, third-party contractors.
00:36:07That includes, you know, people who are a support staff in your life.
00:36:11It's incredibly hard to deal with that much money when you don't have any background or training or stability or foundation.
00:36:18You haven't been taught anything.
00:36:19The people who are supposed to help you with it may be looking out for you.
00:36:23They may be looking out for themselves.
00:36:25They may be robbing you.
00:36:26It leads to a great deal of distrust of the people who are around them.
00:36:31And any insecurities or any lack of self-esteem that you have is actually going to be exacerbated by these things.
00:36:38Because the money and the prestige and everything that comes around it,
00:36:41it could paper over whatever the problems are, but they're not going to go away.
00:36:45Around 2018, there was just a potpourri of problems that you wouldn't think he'd have to deal with
00:36:52with his level of fame and the money he had.
00:36:55Court records and claims of unpaid bills of people that worked for him that he refused to pay.
00:37:01Reports of behaving badly toward the woman he was with.
00:37:05Videos of him throwing things out of the window.
00:37:08And this went beyond normal, like, he's a character behavior.
00:37:13This was a portrait of a man that could be charitably described as being erratic.
00:37:19For the Steelers, it had all started to become a bit more frustrating.
00:37:24They had clearly made the decision that as long as he was responsible in a football sense,
00:37:28which he had been, then they could overlook and ignore everything else.
00:37:32And it started to feel like that was starting to be a little looser
00:37:35and that none of the rest of this could overcome the fact that he was starting to look like he was losing it.
00:37:43There are people who believe that Antonio Brown really wanted to be recognized as the X factor on that team.
00:37:512018, you know, I had like 15 touchdowns, 1,200 yards, 100 catches.
00:37:56I think that was my sixth season doing it.
00:37:58And that's when I realized, like, you know, people don't really appreciate greatness.
00:38:02And there were times that I remember Antonio Brown felt that Mike Tomlin was prioritizing Ben Roethlisberger.
00:38:11Ben was always going to be the top of the pecking order there.
00:38:14The offense was changing to tailor it more towards Ben's new abilities.
00:38:19That mission was almost diametrically opposed to getting Antonio Brown the looks that he wanted to get.
00:38:24That was not something that I think he felt good about.
00:38:26I think Ben Roethlisberger resented it because I think Ben Roethlisberger probably felt like I helped make him.
00:38:32Like, we were teammates and all of a sudden you're coming out and speaking out against me because I'm throwing the ball to you now.
00:38:38His source of feeling good is through achievements, accomplishments, and adulation.
00:38:46When you have a conflict with that, then it breaks that down.
00:38:50And then it breaks down trust.
00:38:53It breaks down the bond.
00:38:56And those are things I really think that he thrives off and needs.
00:39:01Today has Steelers Nation on edge after responding to a former Steelers employee on Twitter with Trade Me.
00:39:08Eventually, Steelers were starting to reach a boiling point with Antonio Brown.
00:39:12He missed a walkthrough.
00:39:15There was an incident in a practice where he and Ben Roethlisberger were at odds.
00:39:19And then Mike Tomlin's like, hey, just don't show up for Sunday.
00:39:22You know, we're going to roll without you.
00:39:24When he benched Antonio Brown, everyone was really surprised.
00:39:27And I think there was a little bit of a, wow, Tomlin finally did it.
00:39:32Like, Tomlin really did it.
00:39:34It was like, wow, this A must have really gotten bad.
00:39:37And B, maybe Mike Tomlin, you know, has had enough.
00:39:41Antonio Brown gets benched in the game against the Bengals and comes onto the field briefly with a fur coat on.
00:39:47The official haberdashery of making a point of the NFL player is the fur coat.
00:39:52That is not a man that is trying to blend in with everything else that is going on.
00:39:56That is a man that is making a point that he's the guy in the fur coat.
00:40:00You guys are not.
00:40:01Matt told us a lot about his future there with the Steelers.
00:40:04It was a big middle finger to everybody.
00:40:06Clearly.
00:40:07And I think it was also him trying to push the buttons to get him out of there.
00:40:10Because I think at that point he knew he needed to go.
00:40:12And I think he probably felt like he had bigger opportunities elsewhere too.
00:40:17I feel like when I went to the Steelers, Mike Tomlin was, man, that dude was like my pops.
00:40:22To be honest.
00:40:24So I'm always, you feel me, indebted to Mike Tomlin.
00:40:27Like, he was one of those guys that stood on the foxhole for me.
00:40:31Always had my back.
00:40:34Always believed in me.
00:40:37You know, at the end of the day, Mike Tomlin is about winning.
00:40:41And is about the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:40:43Is it Mike Tomlin's job to raise Antonio Brown, a 20-something-year-old man?
00:40:49Like, no.
00:40:50It's his job to put out the best product on the field.
00:40:53It's not their job to fix Antonio Brown.
00:40:56Call me, Mr. Pitchett.
00:40:57For the early part of his career, Antonio Brown was known by many names.
00:41:10From A.B. to Mr. Businesses Boomin' to Tony Totap.
00:41:15But by 2019, his relationship with the Steelers had completely fractured.
00:41:20And he was demanding to be called a new name.
00:41:22Call me, Mr. Pitchett.
00:41:24Pitchett for now.
00:41:25And what once seemed like a match made in heaven, was now going through a very nasty and very public breakup.
00:41:33If your team got guaranteed money, they want to get to know me and work with me, tell them call me.
00:41:39There was just so much chaos, you know, in the headlines.
00:41:43The engagement was off the roof that year.
00:41:45A meltdown has taken place before our very eyes.
00:41:48Antonio Brown is done with the Steelers.
00:41:51And he is burning down every possible bridge he can on his exit out.
00:41:58The fact that the Steelers had just extended Antonio Brown and then had to trade him illustrates how desperate they were to move on.
00:42:05They seem to understand when good business goes bad.
00:42:09And they had to assume $20 million of their salary cap that they can't spend on anybody else.
00:42:17That's how much they wanted to get rid of him.
00:42:20Antonio Brown gets his wish.
00:42:22The Steelers ship A.B. off to the Raiders.
00:42:24And the three-year deal worth $50 million makes him the NFL's highest paid receiver and sends ripples around the league.
00:42:32When the Steelers traded Antonio Brown to the Raiders, I think the expectation was that he was going to be able to contribute immediately and elevate the Raiders' offense.
00:42:40Mike Mayak was a new GM in his own right at that time.
00:42:44Obviously, that was a huge acquisition.
00:42:46There was a lot of pressure for things to go smoothly.
00:42:52And it didn't.
00:42:53He did not play a single game for the Raiders.
00:42:58It's just nothing but drama the entire time.
00:43:01I mean, he had frostbite on his feet.
00:43:04A lot of the drama started off in training camp with him burning his feet in the cryotherapy chamber.
00:43:10His feet just ballooned.
00:43:13It looked like he had 15 bunions on his big toe.
00:43:18I've never heard of a player burning their feet in a cryotherapy chamber.
00:43:23And it was just like, it was so crazy because of all things to happen.
00:43:27It's like, what?
00:43:28He can't practice because of what?
00:43:29Antonio Brown is a workhorse and he does really care about his regiment and taking care of his body.
00:43:35So something that should have been really good as far as showing that he is dedicated to his craft and the things that make him better ended up again turning into another drama headline that should not have been.
00:43:49And then on top of that, there was a dispute over the type of helmet he wanted to wear versus what the NFL and the team were asking him to wear.
00:43:57All right. Well, after days of controversy, Oakland Raiders wide receiver Antonio Brown will not be allowed to wear his old helmet this season.
00:44:04He really, really, really did not want to wear this new helmet and went through all these things to avoid wearing the new helmet, including painting his old helmet to try to make it look like the new helmet.
00:44:14And after a point, it started to feel like self-sabotage.
00:44:18I just think that at that time, Antonio Brown was in full A-B mode and it was really more about he wasn't going to be told something about what he preferred.
00:44:28You know, and it's unfortunate because he really needed a good start with the Raiders.
00:44:34Training camp is a very rapid, very crucial aspect of an NFL season.
00:44:39It's when everyone's coalescing and having this sideshow was just a huge detriment.
00:44:46I think when the Pittsburgh Steelers initially traded Antonio, the feeling was that they had made a mistake.
00:44:52And then people saw his behavior in Oakland and felt, oh, maybe not.
00:44:57You know, maybe Mike Tomlin was sort of the Antonio Brown whisperer and they just had enough of it.
00:45:04There were a lot of things that Mike Tomlin helped to buffer.
00:45:07Mike Tomlin kept things behind closed doors, especially if you're trying to make a trade.
00:45:12It's not up to the Steelers to put all that out there to the Raiders as well.
00:45:15It's up to them to do their homework.
00:45:17But also, you have to remember that the acquisition with Antonio Brown to the Raiders was pretty abrupt.
00:45:23So I don't know that they had as much time to do as much back work on Antonio Brown.
00:45:28Raiders general manager Mike Mayock told reporters he felt they now exhausted their options attempting to get Brown's helmet approved.
00:45:35From our perspective, it's time for him to be all in, we're all out.
00:45:40You don't go to mandatory training camp, you get fined.
00:45:42Like, that's just the deal.
00:45:44And then once he's posting the fines and it was clear that this was going to end pretty quickly.
00:45:51And then it culminates in him storming off a practice field and a shouting match with the GM of the Raiders, whom he called a cracker.
00:46:00Can I say cracker?
00:46:03Whom he publicly called a cracker.
00:46:06And then Antonio Brown recorded his coach.
00:46:10I think Gruden was desperate, right, at that point.
00:46:13Hello.
00:46:14Yo, what's up, coach?
00:46:16What the hell's going on, man?
00:46:17We didn't know he was recording the call at the time, but obviously by the time Antonio Brown publicizes it, we realize, wow, you know, that's uncouth.
00:46:26Let me ask you this.
00:46:28Do you want to be a Raider or not?
00:46:29It really was the final nail in the coffin to say, you know what, enough of this.
00:46:35Yes, we really need him.
00:46:36Yes, he's Antonio Brown.
00:46:38But we have to move on.
00:46:40Well, what were the Raiders going to do at that point?
00:46:42I mean, they had a season to start.
00:46:44At some point, you just have to say, f*** it and, like, pull the plug.
00:46:49It is very rare that you see a player as good as Antonio Brown change teams.
00:46:54And very rare that you have the star power of Antonio Brown and John Gruden in the same place.
00:47:00Like, this was a huge, giant story, which then made it an even bigger story once it became clear that this was not going to work.
00:47:07We get this video once he's finally released by the Raiders in the preseason.
00:47:13Raiders free!
00:47:14I don't know you're going to leave!
00:47:19Grandma, they freed me!
00:47:22They freed me, Grandma!
00:47:24I honestly feel like that drama carried over because he was still processing not being a stealer.
00:47:32And sometimes when you get another job, any of us, and it's not really maybe what you really would have wanted or it ended in a way that you really didn't want,
00:47:42you're still in the process of processing that.
00:47:46And I think that that is an ongoing theme with Antonio Brown and A.B., this A.B. character that he also developed.
00:47:55I feel like he's just always, to a degree, been in survival mode.
00:48:00Football is back, but the weekend was hijacked by Antonio Brown.
00:48:03Antonio never ends up playing a game for the Raiders and almost immediately signs a one-year, $15 million deal with the Patriots with a $9 million signing bonus.
00:48:13I think it's a good move. I think he's going to come here. He's going to do great.
00:48:16It's very much a prove-it deal. Can you have the same success here that you had in the first section of your career?
00:48:22He's got attitude problems. Everyone's going to say that. But, I mean, we've got Belichick.
00:48:26I think to a lot of observers, the Patriots were actually the perfect place for Antonio Brown.
00:48:32The Patriots were already the villain of the NFL. If you're not a Patriots fan, you really don't like them.
00:48:38You don't like Brady. You don't like Belichick. And now they've added the ultimate joker, the ultimate wild card.
00:48:43What the Patriots had proven over the years, mostly successfully, was that they could take players who didn't fit in at other programs and get them in line in New England.
00:48:55If you care about football and you love winning games and you're willing to be selfless, you can be successful here.
00:49:01We'll forget about the things you did in the past.
00:49:02How can you help our team? How can you help us win? Okay, what kind of trouble are you in? What can we do about it?
00:49:10Talent trumps trouble. That's how the NFL rolls. Like, it always has. I think it always will.
00:49:17None of it really matters what people think or what they say. What matters is us as teammates working hard to get it right.
00:49:24I'm sure Tom Brady was kind of salivating, thinking like, what can I do with this dude?
00:49:31What's the reaction across the NFL to the side?
00:49:35Oh, shit. They're going to win the Super Bowl again.
00:49:41Just three days into signing with the Patriots, he's accused in a civil suit of sexual assault.
00:49:46In the documents that were put forth yesterday, Brittany Taylor alleges that Brown assaulted her three different times.
00:50:02Brittany Taylor is a former college classmate and a gymnast at Central Michigan University.
00:50:07They become Bible study partners together during their athletic careers.
00:50:12Brittany transfers to LSU.
00:50:14Antonio Brown goes on to the NFL and becomes an all-pro superstar wide receiver.
00:50:20They keep up that friendship from a distance.
00:50:23She ends up being a gymnastics coach as well as a physical trainer.
00:50:27Antonio Brown allegedly rekindles the friendship and introduces a business partnership
00:50:32where he hires Brittany Taylor to be a trainer to work on his lower extremities.
00:50:38And from there, the relationship is alleged to have turned sexual by Brown.
00:50:43She accuses Antonio Brown of masturbating and ejaculating on her back while she was not paying attention.
00:50:49And then later of sexual assault, of rape.
00:50:52The 2018 incident, as alleged, the most serious, forcible rape, refusal to stop, even though she was screaming and yelling for him to stop.
00:51:01That is the accusation.
00:51:02And obviously, any time that a player of Antonio Brown's caliber is mentioned in a lawsuit, it's going to get attention.
00:51:12Brown denies the allegations, posting this video on social media.
00:51:16The devil's going to try to bring you down when you get closer to your goals.
00:51:19Antonio's relationship with Brittany Taylor is complicated because it starts out as a business relationship.
00:51:24And throughout, Brittany Taylor and her mother are seeking forms of investment in the business.
00:51:32Another factor is that in the first instance, when he was alleged to have ejaculated on her back,
00:51:38after he apologizes, she comes back and returns to his employ.
00:51:42Days later, Sports Illustrated reported that it had been in contact with another woman.
00:51:52This young woman talks to us and she tells us that Antonio Brown essentially crossed that employer-employee barrier and made it sexual.
00:52:03Allegedly, Antonio Brown offers to hire this young woman to paint a mural of him in his own home.
00:52:09The woman agrees, and very quickly, things go off the rails.
00:52:13She spends the first day painting this mural without incident.
00:52:17She comes back the second day.
00:52:19She's on her knees painting Antonio Brown on the wall and turns around,
00:52:24and Antonio Brown is standing behind her naked with just a hand towel over his penis.
00:52:29And when she ignored him and turned him down, she was fired.
00:52:36She chose to be anonymous in our story.
00:52:39We protected her anonymity out of fear of retaliation, and that fear ended up being validated.
00:52:44After our story published, which came on the heels of the sexual assault lawsuit against Antonio Brown,
00:52:50Antonio Brown allegedly added her to a group text with him and several of his associates, including his personal lawyer,
00:52:58took screenshots of her Instagram page and shared photos of her kids with this group of people,
00:53:04accused her of being broke and seeking money and being a bad mother.
00:53:09And she ended up taking screenshots, taking it to her lawyer.
00:53:14Her lawyer brought it to the NFL.
00:53:17Of course, we reached out to Antonio to try to get his side of the story.
00:53:22Antonio's response, though, when I texted him to try to get comment, was,
00:53:26F*** out of here, clown.
00:53:30We wrote a follow-up story at Sports Illustrated on this apparent attempt at intimidation.
00:53:36And for the Patriots, that was the last straw.
00:53:39All right, the New England Patriots had just released Antonio Brown following sexual assault accusations against him.
00:53:49You know, at that point, he was such a distraction and just such a mess.
00:53:56I mean, everything about Antonio Brown has been almost like a Charlie Sheen-esque debacle.
00:54:02You have to really be a problem to be that talented and figure out a way to get off of three NFL teams
00:54:09in a span of six months.
00:54:11I think the Patriots would have kept him, even beyond the sexual assault accusation,
00:54:16even beyond this new accusation of, you know, mistreating this woman and his employ.
00:54:23But once he texts her and this group of people with screenshots of her kid, I just thought, oh, well, he's done.
00:54:32You know, he may not work in the NFL ever again.
00:54:34I think when Antonio Brown called out Ben Roethlisberger and Robert Kraft for their own transgressions.
00:54:42He had a series of tweets, as I mentioned, some of them that have since been deleted.
00:54:46He's implying that there's a double standard in how he has been treated versus how others who've been accused of sexual assault or misconduct have been treated.
00:54:53I had a lot of mixed feelings about it because here we have Brown out there being accused.
00:55:00But then he does have a point that those two got shoved under the rug, basically the Kraft masseuse incident.
00:55:09And then Ben Roethlisberger, most notably, two very documented incidents in 2008 and 2010.
00:55:16And then the NFL reducing his punishment from six games to four games for good behavior.
00:55:22Like he literally got the same as Tom Brady did for Deflategate.
00:55:25When Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault, women were not really being believed.
00:55:31This is before Me Too.
00:55:33We did not recognize there was a widespread culture of powerful men victimizing women, raping women.
00:55:43That context did not yet exist.
00:55:45You add on top of that, this is a white, Super Bowl-winning, heroic quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:55:53And so that's absolutely going to get dealt with differently because of time, because of place, because of race, than a similar allegation against A.B.
00:56:08Without the game of football that had grounded him for years, Antonio's life was now in complete disarray.
00:56:15She's here to take the kids to school, not no vehicle.
00:56:18This bitch is broke.
00:56:19She don't drive billies.
00:56:20Chelsea Kyrus is the mother of four of Antonio Brown's children.
00:56:23Look at her.
00:56:24She's a lost cause.
00:56:25Look at her.
00:56:26Now when you're released by the Patriots, that gives you a lot of time in your day to be doing things that you probably shouldn't be doing.
00:56:34We've seen celebrity meltdowns before.
00:56:38I think Antonio Brown is unique in that he filmed it all himself.
00:56:42She evicted.
00:56:43She shouldn't be here.
00:56:43You guys should know that.
00:56:44He's filming himself screaming out on his front lawn with a bag of penis-shaped candy.
00:56:51It's very hard to relate with a lot of that.
00:56:53The bag of dicks.
00:56:54It was bad.
00:57:01I mean, the way he was speaking to the mother of his child, like just the whole thing, the filming of it.
00:57:06The 2020 years of stuff that escalated with Tony was different.
00:57:12When A.B. wasn't playing football, he was having a hard time, and a lot of stuff started bubbling up.
00:57:17Clearly, it was building over time, and everything started to just avalanche on top of him.
00:57:28January 2020.
00:57:30As Antonio's erratic behavior continued to escalate, it was enough to push one longtime confidant over the edge.
00:57:37Drew Rosenhaus is this NFL super agent, and he stuck with Antonio Brown through Pittsburgh, through Oakland, through New England, through the sexual assault accusations.
00:57:49Drew Rosenhaus to then throw his hands up and say, I'm done, is, I think that's a huge turning point for Antonio Brown.
00:57:56Because at that point, it's hard to find anybody who's in his corner.
00:58:04Broward County Regional Communications, may I help you?
00:58:06The guy is high, he smoked, he threatened me, he's trying to bite, he throw stones in my truck.
00:58:13I need the policeman, I need to make the report.
00:58:16Antonio Brown was having some items moved from California to his home in Florida,
00:58:22and there was a disagreement with a moving truck driver about whether he had to pay money before the truck driver could release Antonio Brown's items to him.
00:58:32The moving truck case, the charges were assault, burglary, and criminal mischief.
00:58:49Antonio Brown first pleaded not guilty, and then later pleaded no contest,
00:58:55and was sentenced to a term of probation of two years.
00:59:02Antonio Brown's string of troublesome incidents led NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to address his situation publicly.
00:59:09Goodell prioritized Antonio Brown's well-being and talked about resources available to all players through the league and the NFL Players Association.
00:59:17Roger Goodell talking about the mental health resources being offered to Antonio Brown is unique in that it's sort of an acknowledgement that there may be a mental health issue there.
00:59:31Whether it's some sort of mental illness that is either undiagnosed or hasn't been disclosed,
00:59:36or some sort of physical condition, I mean, many speculated that concussions played a role.
00:59:41He hasn't been the same. If you're a real A.B. fan, you know he hasn't been the same since he was hit in 2016.
00:59:46His head got up after this.
00:59:47Concussions in football had simply been taken as a thing that would happen.
00:59:52It is at the beginning of the 2010s that the league, largely under the threat of litigation from a lot of places,
01:00:00decided that they were going to do something about cutting down on the number of head injuries.
01:00:04And from there, fans kind of took suit also and came to understand that this is a game that is going to have to change,
01:00:11and they're looking out for head injuries is going to be an issue.
01:00:13Not a hot take. He never recovered from the hit he took from Montez Burfecht against Cincinnati. He just never did.
01:00:19The flip side is fans are not doctors. They're not able to make diagnoses of injuries.
01:00:26All they know is that if you get hit in the head, there's a chance that you have suffered a concussion.
01:00:31A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury that heals itself usually around one month on the high end,
01:00:39but most people resolve within one to two weeks.
01:00:42But what can happen is people can continue to have symptoms beyond that one month time period.
01:00:47Studies have shown the duration being up to a year to three years.
01:00:51Also, any anxiety, depression, any behavioral issues that you go into a concussion with can potentially be significantly exacerbated by a concussion.
01:01:02You know, whether it's schizophrenics that have concussions that now their hallucinations are a lot worse, as well as bipolar disorder.
01:01:09So certainly someone having a concussion and the behavioral issues getting worse afterwards wouldn't be something that's very surprising to us.
01:01:16Then we began to learn more and more, and we find out about something called CTE.
01:01:23CTE is chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
01:01:26It's a kind of dementia that ends up developing.
01:01:30And one of the primary risk factors for chronic traumatic encephalopathy is hitting your head over and over and over again.
01:01:35So repetitive head injuries.
01:01:37That then became a catch-all term for just about any strange behavior that you witness from a football player was then blamed on CTE without a sophisticated knowledge of what happened.
01:01:48And I think CTE is a completely different animal because it involves hitting your head.
01:01:51It can involve concussions, but likely involves more sub-concussive head injuries.
01:01:55And there's this lull where you don't have any symptoms, and maybe you feel okay, and then you begin to have symptoms several years later.
01:02:04Behavioral issues are one of the first presenting signs of CTE.
01:02:07Impulse control, angry outbursts, significant irritability are three primary symptoms that we tend to see.
01:02:15It's impossible to diagnose while they're alive.
01:02:17The only diagnosis comes after they're dead when you cut open their brain and you look at their brain under a microscope to be able to determine, you know, does the protein deposition have a pattern that is characteristic of CTE?
01:02:30And it's particularly difficult in the population that we're discussing right now, the NFL, because we know that these people in specific cases can be predisposed to mental illness.
01:02:42But then also you have the CTE thing lingering, right, which one of the presenting symptoms is mental illness.
01:02:50When Antonio Brown got hit in the head by Vontaze Burfik, correct or not, he became the face of CTE in the NFL, the face of a disease that can only be diagnosed in dead people.
01:03:03It's obvious Antonio Brown has issues, but all those issues, CTE, or all those issues, because he's a jerk.
01:03:11There's questions about Antonio Brown, his behavior, you know, whether his behavior is related to CTE or not.
01:03:15It's hard for me to pin everything that happened from a behavioral standpoint on this one concussion that he had.
01:03:23I can't say that. There's like, there's so many other factors.
01:03:26We all want a simple explanation for things in life, right?
01:03:29There sometimes isn't one simple, pure explanation for things.
01:03:32With Antonio Brown, it just feels like there's a lot more play.
01:03:35So it becomes difficult to untangle that and figure out what exactly is going on, especially in this day and age where you've got all sorts of,
01:03:45can I curse, you've got all sorts of shit on social media that's telling people that, hey, you know, AB, you had that one concussion in that game against the Bengals.
01:03:56That's when you had CTE, right?
01:03:59Before Vontaze Burfik turned his brain into scrambled eggs, Antonio Brown was the best receiver in the NFL and a top five wide receiver of all time.
01:04:10An individual is made up of a lot of other factors and is influenced by a lot of other factors other than this one thing, right?
01:04:18Obviously, as a reporter, I feel like one of the things that I always try to achieve is getting big exclusives and big interviews.
01:04:29And obviously, I was very well aware that Antonio Brown had not done an interview since the time that he had gone through all of this circus in the offseason.
01:04:40I'm just like, look, AB, you know, would obviously love for you to do this if you could.
01:04:43And Classic AB, you know, he didn't give me the answer right then and there.
01:04:47So later in the week, I'm covering the Super Bowl, and I was told that I was clear from this live shot.
01:04:54And the next day, I'm showing up for work again to do stuff with SportsCenter.
01:04:58I think word had got back that I hadn't done this live shot.
01:05:02And someone was saying that I wasn't excused.
01:05:06And of course, I find out that I was in big trouble.
01:05:10And, you know, the SportsCenter people were going to take me off SportsCenter during Super Bowl, which was a huge deal.
01:05:16And I knew as a result of that that my career was in trouble at ESPN.
01:05:21It was a big deal.
01:05:22Big deal.
01:05:24And I was devastated.
01:05:26And on my way, leaving the 49ers hotel, I get a phone call.
01:05:31Out of nowhere.
01:05:33And it was Antonio Brown.
01:05:35I just burst into tears on the phone.
01:05:39Antonio Brown's like, what's going on?
01:05:41What's happening?
01:05:42What happened?
01:05:42What did they do to you?
01:05:44I'm repeating the story.
01:05:45I think it's over and all this other stuff.
01:05:47And he was like, oh, no, no, no, no.
01:05:48We're going to give you this interview.
01:05:50We are going to give you this interview.
01:05:52We all came into his personal gym.
01:05:55We waited for hours for Antonio Brown to show up in that parking lot.
01:05:58And, you know, I'm sitting with producers and they keep asking me, is A.B. going to show up?
01:06:02Is A.B. going to show up?
01:06:03Boy, let me tell you, he gave me a run for my money with my nerves.
01:06:07But I kept telling those producers that he was going to keep his word.
01:06:14For everything people say about A.B., I knew he was going to keep his word.
01:06:19Because I knew that the interaction with him and I was authentic.
01:06:24He might have been late, but he was going to show up.
01:06:26And then all of a sudden, this yellow Lamborghini comes out of nowhere, vroom, vroom, vrooming through the parking lot.
01:06:32I think it was like midnight or 1 a.m.
01:06:34And Antonio Brown kept his word.
01:06:36First of all, Antonio, thank you.
01:06:38Thank you for sitting down with us.
01:06:39We appreciate it.
01:06:40I've always known that there's a caring side to Antonio Brown.
01:06:45Players don't have to do one-on-ones, even in the locker room.
01:06:48And they do that because that's their affirmation of you as a reporter, the trust that they have in you.
01:06:52And they're showing that they care also about your career.
01:06:56Can you just describe what it's been like for you to be out of the NFL for 138 days since your last and only game with the Patriots September 15th last year?
01:07:05Having the game taken away from me that many days has been a little frustrated emotionally, but I think I just miss playing.
01:07:14My mindset with him in that interview was really to try to get to the essence of why he felt this was happening.
01:07:23We all react emotionally sometimes when things happen, but people don't really know what led up to an emotional reaction.
01:07:32But also trying to see what he was willing to put on tape as far as what he was also sorry for.
01:07:39And do you feel like you owe anybody in the NFL an apology?
01:07:44I think I owe the whole NFL apology and my past behavior.
01:07:49You know, I think I could have done a lot of things better.
01:07:52I mean, I do think obviously that he knows that there are some behaviors that need to be rolled back.
01:07:58So I try to make sure not only I'm practicing my mental health, I'm talking to like my friends on my level who could encourage my mental health.
01:08:08And just real quick, just because you mentioned your mental health, do you have any concerns of having CTE at all?
01:08:16I just got a whole lot of money.
01:08:18That's it.
01:08:19I can't say that when I was doing that interview that I was expecting him to say, yes, you know, I feel that after this hit, you know, there may be something wrong with my brain or, you know, I'm displaying maybe more mental issues as a result.
01:08:35But at the same time, I do think he was cognizant that he was dealing with emotional ghosts of things that were still haunting him from his past.
01:08:46That I think he is for sure a tune enough to recognize.
01:08:52I just don't think he was ready to attribute it to a big notorious hit.
01:08:57You don't typically have players as good as Antonio Brown who become available in the middle of an NFL season.
01:09:03Like that is an uncommon thing.
01:09:05And Tom Brady still really likes Antonio Brown and wants to play with him on his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
01:09:15He follows Tom Brady to Tampa Bay and he gets one last shot at resurrecting his career.
01:09:23What you hear consistently about Antonio Brown is that when he wants something, he can seem apologetic and he can seem like he's got himself back on the rails.
01:09:37He gets the second and third and fourth chance with all sorts of people and organizations.
01:09:42And I think that's part of his charm and his ability to convince people.
01:09:47So it's not surprising that Tom Brady would say, sure, let's try it again.
01:09:51Tom Brady really putting in the work to make sure that it happened, because obviously with all of that stuff going on, he was going to have to convince Bruce Arians that he was going to be a model citizen.
01:10:00The Tampa Bay Bucs Super Bowl 55 champs.
01:10:07After nine seasons with the Steelers and failed stints with the Raiders and Patriots, Antonio Brown finally got what he had been searching for, a Super Bowl ring.
01:10:16I love Tampa. Tampa's a beautiful city. We won the Super Bowl. First team ever in their own city to win a Super Bowl.
01:10:23Not only was it a redemption for him to win a Super Bowl with Tom Brady, but it was a restoration from all of the things that people were saying about him, what they felt about him, the negative headlines that were getting attached to his name.
01:10:36Let's go! Let's go, Bucs!
01:10:39Yeah, just an amazing moment for the entire Tampa Bay area.
01:10:43I mean, we won the Super Bowl, and then it was the following year. Next year, I realized the NFL just, they wasn't just on my side.
01:10:58In 2022, Antonio Brown has an ankle injury.
01:11:01The final straw in Antonio's NFL career is this back and forth with Bruce Arians on whether or not his ankle is well enough to play.
01:11:09He says he's hurt. He also had become the most unreliable narrator of all time, and few things can tear asunder the relationship between a football player and a team, like a dispute over an injury. And that is what happened here.
01:11:21The Buccaneers entering that game week 17 against the Jets, they were fairly confident about their position.
01:11:27But for Antonio Brown, there was his ankle and whether he, you know, was at full capacity.
01:11:34The thin line between playing hurt and playing injured is the line that the NFL teeters on at all times.
01:11:40And the expectation is if you at all can play, you will play.
01:11:44And then we had the whole saga in game.
01:11:48You just saw him upset. You saw teammates trying to calm him down.
01:11:52Brown took off his jersey, shoulder pads, and undershirt midway through the third quarter of the game before jogging off the field for good.
01:12:08Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians telling reporters after the game, quote, he is no longer a bug.
01:12:13It was horrific what he did, walking off the field in that last game.
01:12:18I was like, he's not getting in the Hall of Fame to do that.
01:12:24That's just a slap in the face to everything the NFL stands for.
01:12:31And it ends up being this he said, she said.
01:12:38Antonio ends up accusing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of essentially pressuring him into playing while injured.
01:12:45And at this point in Antonio Brown's very public personal life, no one is inclined to believe his side of a he said, she said.
01:12:52In an effort to share his side of the story, Antonio Brown sat down for an exclusive interview with Nate Burleson on CBS Mornings.
01:13:01In my mind, for the coach that, you know, I go to war with, I just text him I'm hurt, that I'm trying to still suck it up, that go to war for you.
01:13:09And like here in the midst of the battle, you telling me get the hell out of here like I'm done.
01:13:22Antonio Brown's life after the NFL has been complex.
01:13:31This is a guy who, after making seven Pro Bowls and a nine-year stretch, retires and supposedly works for Kanye West's company, Donda, as the head of Donda Sports.
01:13:43How did you link up with Kanye?
01:13:45Man, he was looking for me right when I walked off the field.
01:13:47Really?
01:13:48Yeah.
01:13:49He starts recording songs.
01:13:51Under the name AB, he briefly purchases and owns a National Arena League team with his father.
01:14:03He created his own YouTube page slash podcast called CTESPN.
01:14:11We started to see even more bizarre things.
01:14:14You know, now Antonio Brown is posting about Tom Brady's wife.
01:14:17In early 2024, Antonio Brown filed for bankruptcy.
01:14:24Bankruptcy is a choice, as I have been told by other people who have done this.
01:14:27You choose bankruptcy.
01:14:28It could mean a whole lot of different things, but it doesn't mean things are going well.
01:14:32Things get over here.
01:14:33You know, anybody can sue you, take you for whatever you got.
01:14:36You know, at this point, I don't work.
01:14:37I don't make millions of dollars where it's coming in, where I could just force someone that money.
01:14:41So, you know, chapter 11 is about restructuring.
01:14:44In his initial bankruptcy filing, Antonio Brown checked a box indicating that he had less than $50,000 in total assets.
01:14:53I think that would probably come as a surprise to anybody who followed his NFL career.
01:14:59You see stories like this following people who are flashy with money and seek validation from showing off their wealth, which we know is true about Antonio.
01:15:12I can't say that it was expected, but it wasn't unexpected.
01:15:15Life after retirement for all professional athletes is very difficult.
01:15:19There's nothing else that they can do to make 70,000 people cheer for them.
01:15:23If I'm not a wide receiver, then who am I?
01:15:26What is my purpose?
01:15:26What am I here to do?
01:15:27You know, you get a euphoria from playing this game.
01:15:31Even the pain of losses, there's a side of it that feels good because at least you're part of something.
01:15:37There's nothing where you will have the relationships with the people in your life that you had with the people in that locker room.
01:15:44To leave that and to go to something else is jarring.
01:15:49Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
01:15:51That actually...
01:15:52I'm out of hand!
01:15:53My God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!
01:15:55Oh my God, he has a gun!
01:15:57Oh my God, that guy has a gun!
01:16:00Oh my God!
01:16:05Oh my God!
01:16:07Nice, guys!
01:16:08Nice, guys!
01:16:09The incident happened in mid-May, 2025, at an amateur boxing event.
01:16:15that was hosted by a well-known streamer named Aiden Ross.
01:16:19At Aiden Ross' Brand Risk boxing event,
01:16:21there was a situation that happened outside with Antonio Brown.
01:16:24Antonio Brown lost it.
01:16:26Again.
01:16:27Pop, pop! Two shots go off.
01:16:29Essentially, there was some sort of dispute
01:16:31where Antonio Brown was seen being involved
01:16:35in some sort of fight with a small group of other people.
01:16:39Back up!
01:16:42Hold on.
01:16:43It was an event with a lot of influencers.
01:16:48So you had a lot of people who were doing first-person videos.
01:16:54Oh, they're fighting, they're fighting, they're fighting, they're fighting.
01:16:56It's kind of chaotic.
01:16:57There are a lot of bodies, a lot of fists flying.
01:17:02Not over here, not over here, not over here.
01:17:03Oh, God!
01:17:06You couldn't see from the footage who started it.
01:17:10Antonio Brown had at one point allegedly grabbed a security guard's gun
01:17:15and fired two shots in the general direction of a former acquaintance.
01:17:22No, this is all my friends.
01:17:23Oh, hell.
01:17:24No, no, no, no, no, no.
01:17:27Get down, get down, get down.
01:17:30What the f***?
01:17:31Shots were fired.
01:17:32At the time we knew that police had been called, Antonio Brown was briefly detained and questioned.
01:17:41Authorities said that they found two shell casings at the scene.
01:17:45Though when they detained Antonio Brown, he did not have a weapon on him.
01:17:50But there were no charges filed.
01:17:52And shortly thereafter, Antonio Brown put out a statement clarifying that he had not been arrested
01:17:57and alleging that he had been jumped, essentially.
01:18:01Antonio Brown confirmed that somebody tried to snatch his iced-out chain after the event,
01:18:06which caused that whole situation.
01:18:08But there was a lot that was unclear about what had happened.
01:18:13Florida authorities obtained security footage that showed, allegedly, Antonio Brown's involvement
01:18:20and helped identify the alleged victim, Zul Karim Natambu.
01:18:25Zul Karim Natambu said in an interview with TMZ that he and Antonio Brown had had some beef
01:18:31and that it was actually Natambu who, after some sort of verbal altercation, was attacked by Brown.
01:18:39If you watch the video, everybody was attacking me.
01:18:42It was a 3v1.
01:18:43He went, got a gun, shot, wildfire, and we fought.
01:18:46He shot at me twice.
01:18:47Praise be to Allah, I wasn't hit.
01:18:49We started looking into who is Zul Karim Natambu and found that they had a history.
01:18:56Zul Karim Natambu allegedly first met Antonio Brown in 2022 when they were both in Dubai.
01:19:03Shortly after leaving the NFL, he was, at this point in time, traveling with the boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.
01:19:10According to the court records, Natambu had some jewelry that he agreed to let Antonio wear,
01:19:17presumably to help promote his jewelry business.
01:19:21Then when Natambu allegedly asked for the jewelry back, Brown said he didn't have it.
01:19:26After this back and forth, Antonio Brown allegedly gave Natambu a couple of gold chains to hold as collateral.
01:19:35Natambu then alleged that Antonio Brown went to Dubai authorities and claimed that Natambu had stolen the chains from Brown and led to him being jailed in Dubai for a period of several weeks.
01:19:50Listen, I spent 40 days in a Dubai jail because we were out there for a Floyd Mayweather fight.
01:19:56He tried to defraud me out of a multi-pendant and a design that I was trying to go talk to, well, I was going to talk to Floyd about being an ambassador for.
01:20:03Natambu then filed a lawsuit against Antonio Brown for not returning the jewelry, which was estimated at six figures, and wrongful imprisonment.
01:20:13Antonio Brown initially did not respond to this lawsuit, which led to Natambu earning a judgment, and that judgment has, as far as I'm aware, still not been paid.
01:20:27Fast forward, and The Washington Post reported that an arrest warrant was signed by a judge.
01:20:34He was charged with attempted second-degree murder.
01:20:36Well, a warrant has been issued for former Bucs receiver Antonio Brown for attempted murder.
01:20:47A.B. is wanted.
01:20:48What?
01:20:49Yes, you heard that right.
01:20:50Antonio Brown!
01:20:52Well, what are we even doing here, Antonio Brown?
01:20:55Damn, A.B., this is not a good look, bro.
01:20:58The first thing I thought about was, thank God, he didn't actually kill somebody.
01:21:04After the arrest warrant was signed by a judge, within a week, he was posting clips on social media of himself in the Middle East, Dubai, in the UAE, clips of him riding a bicycle and jumping at a trampoline park and getting a haircut.
01:21:23Ah, my eyes, all right, bro?
01:21:25No, this shit's too icy, bro.
01:21:27He also wrote on social media that the charges were unfounded, and he often posts on X and uses memes, and one of them, the caption was something like, Miami authorities, and it was people dressed up as clowns.
01:21:42The way that he was posting indicated that, from the Middle East, he was going to try to continue to live his life.
01:21:50Antonio Brown has claimed to be out of the country.
01:21:54You're going to need to come back to the United States at some point.
01:21:57I don't give a run, A.B.
01:21:59People on the run don't post their whereabouts.
01:22:02He was perhaps on the run, but certainly not running.
01:22:04Everybody, they knew where to find him.
01:22:16We have an update for you on the arrest of former NFL star Antonio Brown.
01:22:21Breaking news, Antonio Brown has been extradited from Dubai.
01:22:26They extradited A.B.'s ass back to America.
01:22:29Now he's got to face the consequences of his actions.
01:22:31Dude, talk about a guy whose CTE just absolutely destroyed his life.
01:22:37He was posting videos, riding a bike, kind of like laughing at the city of Miami, saying, hey, I'm in Dubai.
01:22:43Maybe he thought that we couldn't extradite from there.
01:22:46But we worked along with Dubai police, and he was taken into custody.
01:22:51A second-degree attempted murder charge in Florida is a first-degree felony.
01:22:56If Antonio Brown is found guilty, he could certainly face jail time.
01:22:59Prosecutors say he could face 30 years in prison.
01:23:03The guy I knew then wanted something.
01:23:07Wanted to succeed.
01:23:09Wanted to make it.
01:23:11I hope and I pray that things get better for him.
01:23:17Maybe this thing is a good scare.
01:23:18Bring him back right center.
01:23:20If you were to ask me do I think Antonio Brown would just voluntarily try to, in his right mind, attempt to kill someone, I would tell you no.
01:23:30It's unfortunate because, you know, Antonio Brown is an impresario in the NFL.
01:23:37It's unfortunate because he's a father.
01:23:39And it's unfortunate because you don't want to see anybody, let alone Antonio Brown, be associated with anything potentially criminal.
01:23:51Retired NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown pleads not guilty to attempted murder.
01:23:57Brown appeared virtually in a Miami courtroom today.
01:24:00In addition to the not guilty plea, Brown has also requested a jury trial.
01:24:04Man, all-time great.
01:24:11It's easy to judge the choices A.B. made.
01:24:15It's very difficult to understand and accept the reason why he made those choices and the history that led him to it.
01:24:23Antonio Brown's story is so complicated.
01:24:26It was a collision of events that have led him to the path that he's on, the upbringing, the massive amount of money, the adulation from the NFL, the chip on his shoulder, the wanting to prove himself, the falling in love with himself or hating himself.
01:24:45Maybe it's that.
01:24:46We don't know.
01:24:47His story says something about how you navigate life as someone in not just pro sports but in the limelight, right?
01:24:56How difficult it is when you're influenced by money, when you're influenced by attention and star treatment to maintain your, if not sanity, your person, right?
01:25:08Who you are to maintain your core.
01:25:09I think the NFL has much more responsibility for the health of their players after they leave the league than what they've shown.
01:25:18These guys risk their lives for you.
01:25:19They're getting hit on the head every five minutes.
01:25:21They're gladiators.
01:25:24There's no way anybody can come out of that and be okay.
01:25:27And then you roll in there the millions of dollars, the fame.
01:25:31And these guys, man, it's hard to come out of that and be okay, let alone good.
01:25:35Right now, he's probably the biggest cautionary tale about the NFL and fame, the pressures athletes face, what can happen when people who don't have the right support system immediately get a whole bunch of money.
01:25:51If you're not in a program that's trying to address financial literacy, emotional health, mental health, and you are making a lot of money, there can be more Antonio Browns out there in the coming years.
01:26:05Last time I saw Antonio Brown was at a high school basketball game.
01:26:12I told him, hey, man, you started to get gray hair and stuff like that.
01:26:15He was like, yeah, coach, a little stressed.
01:26:18I said, yeah.
01:26:18I said, you know, you could take some of that stress away, you know, just by doing the right thing.
01:26:24He was like, I know, coach.
01:26:25He said, I'm trying.
01:26:26I don't think we definitively at this point have the answer for how it is that we got here.
01:26:34But the only thing we know is in the end, he's responsible for all of this.
01:26:40Tony, this is all happening on your watch.
01:26:43It's you.
01:26:45It's not other people.
01:26:47It's you.
01:26:48And you got to figure your way out of this somehow, some way.
01:26:52Even if there was help that he needed, he's responsible for being the one to go get it.
01:26:57And I think that it is easy to use him as an avatar to explore a lot of different issues.
01:27:02But the common denominator in everything that's happened to him, good or bad, is Antonio Brown.
01:27:06And when all is said is done, the one that's going to have to answer for it all is him.
01:27:10I think Antonio, you know, there were moods and modes.
01:27:14What mood he was in, what mode he was in.
01:27:16And I always worried about that.
01:27:19But for a long time, he did well.
01:27:22The one thing I would tell him is to open the book and rely on the only person you have ever counted on as Jesus.
01:27:32Go back to him.
01:27:34Because some of the things that are going on are going to bring you back to him anyway.
01:27:40And we're going to fall off the cliff.
01:27:41And I think if you see a guy as talented and as sharp as Antonio Brown was fall off that cliff, then you better believe you can too.
01:28:11You
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