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00:00:00Former NFL All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown has been arrested.
00:00:08The former NFL player was extradited from Dubai to New Jersey.
00:00:12Brown will now face a top count of attempted second-degree murder.
00:00:17Bro, that's a serious charge. Like, what the ?
00:00:21That shit is crazy to me, bro. I'm not gonna lie.
00:00:22What do you think is gonna happen to Antonio Brown?
00:00:26Well before his story took the turns, we now know.
00:00:30Antonio Brown was the kind of player and personality people couldn't get enough of.
00:00:36Antonio Brown was probably the best player I've seen live in a football game.
00:00:39Antonio Brown was something else.
00:00:41He was fearless.
00:00:42Electrifying.
00:00:43There seemed to be no limit to what he was gonna be able to do.
00:00:49So, what went wrong? What happened? I mean, he was on top of the world.
00:00:53Police in Florida are looking to arrest Antonio Brown.
00:00:56He threw furniture off a high-rise balcony.
00:00:58He was on top of rape and two other instances of sexual assault.
00:01:01This is a loose cannon.
00:01:02Look at her. She's a lost cause. Look at her.
00:01:05You know what they say, more money, more problems.
00:01:08I think the AB persona overtook him.
00:01:11Attention is a drug and everybody's on it.
00:01:13The devil gonna try to bring you down when you get closer to your goals.
00:01:16I never wanted to open up the paper one day and see something drastically went wrong with him.
00:01:23Oh my God, he has a gun!
00:01:25Oh my God!
00:01:26Get down, get down, get down!
00:01:28Shots were fired.
00:01:30Wait a minute, what happened?
00:01:31We have absolutely reached rock bottom.
00:01:34Right now, he's probably the biggest cautionary tale about the NFL and fame.
00:01:40The chase for greatness can change you, and sometimes in ways you don't see coming.
00:01:45I think to a lot of people, Antonio Brown remains a mystery.
00:01:59Nobody has that silver bullet final answer to the question of what happened to Antonio?
00:02:05What's wrong with Antonio?
00:02:10It's really dangerous to speculate about people's mental health.
00:02:13We do know that he played a very violent sport that leaves a lot of people debilitated from hits to the head.
00:02:21So I don't know if it was one hit, I don't know if it was a lifetime of hits, I don't know if it was any hits.
00:02:26What we're seeing is somebody with some real troubles.
00:02:32Whether a hero, a villain, or perhaps somewhere in between, everyone's got an origin story.
00:02:38To search for who Antonio Brown is, you have to take it back to the beginning, where it all started.
00:02:50I grew up in Liberty City, Miami.
00:02:54My grandma moved here from the Bahamas in the 1900s.
00:02:57Antonio Tavares Brown was born on July 10th, 1988, at a time when the term, Welcome to Miami, was a bit more sinister than a song by Will Smith.
00:03:10Growing up, I got grazed with a bullet, like right by my ear.
00:03:15And I was just a part of the neighborhood.
00:03:17People really don't understand, Miami is not just South Beach. It has, it's rough and tough areas.
00:03:28During the 90s, when Antonio was growing up in Liberty City, it's a tough place.
00:03:35We have three people shot. Two of them are known drug dealers on this corner.
00:03:40It was a rough upbringing. He grew up in a lot of poverty.
00:03:47John Doe gang was considered one of the most notorious gangs that ever was a part of the city of Miami.
00:03:53The John Doe's gang members were violent cocaine suppliers for Liberty City.
00:03:58And some kids, they don't know how to decipher, is this the way I should go?
00:04:04They see the money. They see the cars. And some of them want to be a part of that.
00:04:11Growing up for me, it was either you play football or be a drug dealer or probably do something wrong.
00:04:16So I had to narrow down my focus right away.
00:04:18One thing a lot of people don't realize about those of us who come from poverty and dysfunction and violence
00:04:24is that you carry that trauma with you every day.
00:04:28It is a traumatic existence. Even if you're not shot at or chased or robbed,
00:04:33you're surrounded by that. It's the water you drink. It's the air you breathe.
00:04:36And that just has a real cumulative effect on how you think and the choices you make.
00:04:44Football is a game that helps you take your mind off the trauma and the pressure of the environment
00:04:50you're in and what's going around you. So for me, competition and sports was always a part of my life.
00:04:56Antonio was the kind of person and player that I would say needed football.
00:05:02It's about the equivalent, but about food, air and water.
00:05:07There was an escape of reality. Once you put on the helmet and hit the field,
00:05:11you don't think about what's going on in the world.
00:05:14So football is presented, generally speaking, as something that can save souls,
00:05:18but very specifically for people who grow up playing football in South Florida.
00:05:22From Dade County up to Palm Beach, the thought very much so is we are using football
00:05:27as a way to make sure that we keep these young men out of trouble.
00:05:31Antonio Brown's mother and father, they separated as he was growing up.
00:05:36His father was chasing his dream of becoming a professional football player.
00:05:40I grew up seeing my dad be a good football player. He was like the greatest player in the AFL,
00:05:47like over Kurt Warner's. And I witnessed him. I've been in his games. I was seeing what he was
00:05:51like in that, why he didn't go to the NFL. You know what I mean? So for me, I was going to do it better.
00:05:56Antonio really looked up to his father. I think that was a big push for him.
00:06:00He wanted to go out there and just work hard and just let Daniel take care of himself.
00:06:05I was a high school kid who was raised with my mom. My dad was always away.
00:06:11My mom, she got so much stuff going around her. She really couldn't focus on what I needed to do,
00:06:17so I had to become a man early. When you are a product of a broken home,
00:06:23you have a lot of questions about whether people are really there for you.
00:06:29Because of that, you're going to be looking for that in any of the relationships that you have,
00:06:34even outside of the home.
00:06:37I remember the first time I met Antonio Brown. I was helping coach our junior varsity team at the time.
00:06:45And Tony walked up and said, Coach, I'm here to play football at Miami-Norland Senior High.
00:06:52I said, you came in the middle of the season. What do you think? We supposed to just drop everything
00:06:56and put you in? You know, and I don't think he liked that. He didn't like the fact that I wasn't like,
00:07:02yo, come on. Let's go. Let's go play right now.
00:07:05So he didn't come back until the following year. But when he came back, he took off.
00:07:13He wasn't the biggest guy in the world. He was slim. So an assistant coach by the name of James Upton
00:07:25gave him a nickname Boney Tony. Ken started calling him Boney Tony. He had a little dance that he used
00:07:32to do to it. Tony's size played a big part of his football career. He wanted to let you know,
00:07:40hey, I don't care how big or how small I am. I'm tougher than you. I'm rougher than you.
00:07:46And you're not going to stop me from doing what I need to do on this field.
00:07:49His drive was what stuck out an awful lot. Even from when we had to punish him for certain things,
00:07:59you know, we were running him up and down the entire field. And it got to the point where
00:08:06Tony said, Coach, y'all can run me. But guess what? I don't care. I'm going to continue to run.
00:08:13And then he said, you want to know why? Because I'm a monster.
00:08:20As Tony began to get a little bit older, it was him against the world.
00:08:27His mom remarried. And now you have a new father who's not your father in the home.
00:08:33There's friction there. You're feeling isolated because, you know,
00:08:37your adulation from your mom is being split with someone else.
00:08:41There was times where I dropped him off to his mom's house.
00:08:44And then there was times when I dropped him off to his grandmother's house.
00:08:48Sometimes he would go home with one of the players. That was pretty much his way of life.
00:08:56And at a young age, it'll harden you. After Antonio graduated from high school,
00:09:03he had put out a few applications to a few schools here and there who had interest in him.
00:09:08But solely because of the academic and him not passing that entrance exam,
00:09:13he had to somewhat be pushed aside. As he was waiting to get a decision from those other schools,
00:09:19he found out they had open tryouts at FIU. And Tony knew that he could play at that level.
00:09:26But things happened and it didn't work out like it should have.
00:09:32He was on school campus. The dorm supervisor had some words with Antonio and another young man,
00:09:41and then Tony and them left. As they're walking across the campus, campus police approached them.
00:09:49I guess it got kind of loud. The other young man that was with Tony pushed the officer away and
00:09:56Tony's instinct was to run. That started a chase throughout the school.
00:10:01Vice obtained campus police records from this 2007 incident, which showed that 19-year-old Antonio
00:10:09Brown and a teammate were involved in a physical incident with officers. Witnesses stated that
00:10:14Brown fled police and football staffers twice, even removing his clothing to disguise his appearance.
00:10:20A place like Liberty City will ingrain you with ways of thinking and experiences that you can carry for
00:10:27the rest of your life. A lot of people look at those of us from these neighborhoods and say,
00:10:31why are they doing these things? Why would you run from the police? That doesn't make any sense.
00:10:36Well, it makes all the sense in the world if you're from that environment.
00:10:42Finally, I guess they were obtained and then I was called. I spoke to the campus police. He said,
00:10:49coach, I don't ever want to see that kid on this campus ever again.
00:10:53The way you handle adversity is the way you're going to get through life because we all got
00:10:57adversity. Life's not perfect. You know what I mean? I done been through so much, but you know,
00:11:03you've got to keep it positive on your name and don't put no scrutiny and just let you be great.
00:11:07His thing was, coach, I still want to go to school. I know there's a bad situation,
00:11:12but I want to go to school. Can you please help me? And it just so happened,
00:11:17and I had a buddy that I grew up with and at that particular time, he was coaching at Central
00:11:25Michigan University. Me and coach Brooks played high school football together. So there was an
00:11:33intimacy among us there and he knew it would be the right fit for Antonio. He said, hey, you get him up
00:11:40here by his date. He can start working out with the team and we can give him a spot as a preferred walk-on.
00:11:48Friends and family put him on a plane. We got him situated, you know, got him in the dorms.
00:11:54I think that when you come from a tough environment, economic environment, it may seem like you don't
00:12:00have a lot to lose. You actually do because this is all you got. So anytime you meet an athlete,
00:12:07including Antonio Brown, when it comes to trust, they're entrusting you with their lives.
00:12:14So they're not going to hand that over very easily. You got to prove yourself to them.
00:12:17And once they earn their trust, then they'll start to begin to trust you because they know you're the
00:12:24one that's given them an opportunity to get out of the situation that they're in.
00:12:31Central Michigan is also a place that's in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. There's no mountains there and
00:12:36there's nothing pleasant about it. There's not a lot of distractions. Let's just say that. So I
00:12:41benefited him. Showing up at Central Michigan as a walk-on, knowing he has three weeks to get a
00:12:47scholarship and now you're in survival mode. And if you don't do this, you're back in the streets of,
00:12:51you know, Miami. He called me one day and he said, Coach, his voice started cracking a little bit and
00:12:58he said, I've done exactly what y'all asked me to do up here and they're going to give me a scholarship.
00:13:04For me, you know, going to college was a time that changed my life. That was the best thing that
00:13:09happened because I was able to leave Miami. I went to Central Michigan. And the rest was history.
00:13:15Now the Chippewas on the return. And this is Antonio Brown.
00:13:23When I started working with Antonio Brown at Central Michigan, whether it was with him
00:13:27specifically with special teams and punt returning, his willingness to to win and succeed and put his
00:13:34name out there was paramount. It meant the world to him. Tony jumped on the scene as a freshman,
00:13:42his sophomore year, his junior year. He just kept getting better and better and better.
00:13:50He brought a flavor from Miami-Dade County up to the Midwest, where that kind of bravado,
00:13:56persona, energy is a little different. He was very fast, very quick.
00:14:01Antonio Brown will go the distance. Touchdown, Central Michigan.
00:14:06Let me tell you something. You're scoring a bunch of touchdowns. You make a lot of friends in a hurry.
00:14:11The stage that he was on at Central Michigan, I think, was perfect for him. They had a very good
00:14:15team. They were successful, big time, with Tony and the pieces that they already had there.
00:14:21He always did above and beyond. During practices at six o'clock in the morning, he was in. And toward
00:14:28the end of practice, as things finished, he'd stay afterwards and run routes and catch balls
00:14:33from the quarterback. I was not Antonio Brown's position coach, but I also brought him there.
00:14:41So I could speak to him in a way that nobody else there could.
00:14:45You had to come at him a certain way. He didn't like anybody talking down to him. You know,
00:14:50speak to me, don't speak at me. If you were rough around the edges with him, he was going to let you
00:14:55know about it. If he showed up with a big smile early in the morning, you already know. He's in a
00:15:00great mood. He's there to work. If he showed up with a frown on his face, he was still going to work.
00:15:08I heard one of our coaches say this about Antonio Brown. He says,
00:15:11We've had a lot of really good players around here, and I've loved those guys Monday through
00:15:16Friday and hated him on Saturday. But we've had guys like Antonio who could be difficult during the
00:15:21week. But we love him on Saturday. We need more guys like that. People knew all along he was a smart
00:15:27kid. Just had a lot of challenges, you know, and a lot of pain growing up. But that pain
00:15:33can be flipped for energy. Tony was a kid, even in high school. He just needed a shot.
00:15:43So we said if Tony could get a shot after college, he would be all right. I'd see him
00:15:50periodically. It might have been Christmas Eve. We had breakfast at a Denny's. And he couldn't
00:15:57stress enough that he wanted to get drafted. When you're doing your scouting on a player to draft
00:16:07the player, you're going to go into his background, figure out what happened at Central Michigan,
00:16:12talk to coaches like a Paul Valero. The process of being drafted into the NFL,
00:16:17it's just you're under a microscope. There's the evaluation of you physically.
00:16:23Once you get past that, now it's the character side, habits, work ethic. Are you mentally strong?
00:16:30Are you competitive? Because at the end of the day, you're signing someone to millions of dollars,
00:16:35and they have to perform for you. When you're evaluating a player going into the NFL,
00:16:40people take into consideration that you're playing in the Mid-American Conference.
00:16:45It's no knock on Central Michigan, but it's not one of the big premier conferences.
00:16:49Smaller players, small school. You know, he wasn't the normal five-star player that you see
00:16:55sign with an SEC school and play on a national stage. He kind of came up really through the back
00:17:01door of college football. So there wasn't a lot of credibility he had coming into the draft.
00:17:07So in the NFL draft, now there's seven rounds.
00:17:15I actually watched every round to see if he was going to get picked up. And just so happened,
00:17:22he got picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:17:24Somebody came up and told me, hey, the Steelers just picked up Antonio. I said, really? I was just
00:17:32happy for him. A sixth round pick often will not make the roster of a team. If you get lucky,
00:17:39you find an Antonio Brown and you keep him at bay in the NFL. It's not about where you get drafted.
00:17:47There's plenty of guys that get drafted early and can play dead in Western.
00:17:54The Steelers was a good environment for him. Close camp, household name, family-oriented.
00:18:00It's a great organization, you know, with a great head coach,
00:18:03Coach Tomlin, and they got a culture there of looking after guys.
00:18:06I think Tomlin posed as a father figure to him, you know, somewhat of what he got when he was in high
00:18:14school. When he was at Central Michigan, he had Coach Valero there to make sure he was going to see
00:18:21things through. Mike Tomlin believes in developing the person, not just the player. And so, you know,
00:18:27for a guy like Antonio Brown, who may have needed a little bit of hand-holding, a guy like Mike Tomlin
00:18:32is a good coach for someone like that. I feel like when I went to the Steelers, Mike Tomlin was
00:18:37that father figure for me, like, outside of coach. And he was the guy who always used to try to talk
00:18:41to me about things, even when I don't, I didn't understand him. Once I saw him and talked with
00:18:46him, I knew I would have success. Being part of an organization like the Steelers is being part of
00:18:50a family. Mike Tomlin really preaches that, he embodies that, and he really made sure that the
00:18:56players who come through really do as well. A lot of the locker room culture was really run by the
00:19:02players, a veteran player council. There are a lot of players who've been there for a long time,
00:19:07right? And they're the locker room leaders. They're the ones that the younger players look up to,
00:19:10they model their behavior after if they're doing it right. And Mike Tomlin wanted it that way,
00:19:15because he felt like these were adults and not kids. But in the same instance, he really wanted
00:19:18to be there for them, and his door was open for them. And he would talk to players all the time
00:19:22about their families, about their lives, about the issues they may be going through.
00:19:27When you're drafting a player that late in the draft, you're probably not expecting a whole lot.
00:19:31Maybe he'll make the team and contribute. Nobody really knew that he would become what he did.
00:19:35He just needed a foot in the door, and Tony kicked the door in.
00:19:48I mean, life is made of moments. You live for those moments that you dream about. As a kid playing
00:19:53football, you dream about like, yo, I want to win the Super Bowl. You know, I want to lead the NFL in
00:19:57touchdown. For me, that was always my goal. From high school to college, Antonio Brown was searching
00:20:03to carve out his own path, and his hard work paid off. Drafted by one of the NFL's premier franchises,
00:20:11Antonio seized his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and ran with it. When Antonio Brown signed with the
00:20:16Pittsburgh Steelers, late-round pick, you're signing a three-year deal, around 1.3 million dollars.
00:20:23Pretty modest signing bonus of about 70,000 or so. That's not the huge money that a lot of these
00:20:29star interval players are accustomed to, but if you're Antonio Brown, you really worked your way
00:20:33from the bottom into NFL status. That's a great contract. That's huge money for a player coming up.
00:20:40When he first came to Pittsburgh, the Steelers were loaded at wide receiver. They had a lot of star
00:20:44players. Antonio Brown was really perceived as maybe your fourth or fifth wide receiver on the team,
00:20:49and then a kickoff punt returner. You know, special teams, that was where his value was.
00:20:53I started covering Antonio when I was working for ESPN. I remember him being very precocious,
00:21:01very personable. He's got a very white smile, so his teeth are blindingly white. I do remember that
00:21:08about him, and you know, I just remember him bursting on the scene. He quickly made himself known with his
00:21:16performance. By Antonio Brown's second year, it stamped his mark on the team, and he was becoming a
00:21:22superstar. And then gradually, the more and more he plays, the clearer that he gets that you have one of
00:21:31the best players in the NFL. And then it also becomes clear that, much in the tradition of great
00:21:37wide receivers, this guy is a character. Yeah, Antonio Brown was something else.
00:21:44His extroverted personality on the field, dance he would do when he'd catch the ball.
00:21:51He knew that's what people wanted to see, and he gave it to them.
00:21:55Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown, that relationship was perfect for both of them.
00:22:01Ben Roethlisberger saw what was there in Antonio Brown and the playmaking ability he had,
00:22:04and would go to him frequently. And I think Antonio Brown really appreciated that. So I think they
00:22:09needed each other, they respected each other, and on the field knew the value that each brought to the
00:22:13other. In 2012, the Steelers signed Antonio Brown to a five-year, $42 million contract. At the time,
00:22:22they were getting ahead of what they saw was a brilliant player who's going to cost a lot more if
00:22:27they waited a year or two. If you're Antonio Brown, I think in many ways he probably saw it as not just
00:22:33about money, it's confirmation. That chip on his shoulder, I think, was real. His work ethic, I
00:22:38think, was driven from that. He wanted to prove himself. He had this drive to succeed that was
00:22:43unparalleled. A $42 million contract will turn your whole life upside down, in good ways and in bad ways,
00:22:51especially when you come from having nothing. You've got money for the first time in your life
00:22:57and you're supposed to be able to operate normally. How does that work? The money is fun and big and so
00:23:04you're spending that and it gives you a big head because you have so much money. It's like you can't
00:23:08go wrong. You can't overspend on anything, right? And so that obviously has its own entrapments.
00:23:15He was somebody who did live an extravagant lifestyle.
00:23:19The choices that people make who once were poor, a lot of them are predicated on not wanting that
00:23:25feeling of being poor. It feels really bad to pull up to someplace and everybody looks at your car
00:23:31because the side is rusted out. So AB just gonna roll up in the old school Rolls Royce with a driver?
00:23:37It feels really bad to go to school and have people make fun of your sneakers because they got holes in
00:23:42them. And so when you get some money, you're going to make sure not only are they not going to make
00:23:47fun of them, but they're going to admire them. And I'm going to feel good about myself.
00:23:55One year he showed up in a helicopter, literally pulled up into like a grass field adjacent to the
00:24:01college. And we're all there waiting on all the players to show up. And then you get word like,
00:24:05hey, Antonio is about to be here, but he's not showing up in this driveway right here. He's going
00:24:08to be a half mile down the way in a field in a black helicopter.
00:24:12Do you want to make a statement with coming in by helicopter?
00:24:14I just want to be on time to be ready to go.
00:24:18Watching Antonio's career unfold, it was, it was a joy. It was a lot of pride in being able to help
00:24:25him get to where he needed to be. By 2015, Antonio Brown was arguably the best wide receiver in the
00:24:32NFL and on the fast track to the Hall of Fame. In his sixth season in the league, he had a career best
00:24:381,834 receiving yards, the fifth most of all time in a single season. He seemed unstoppable until
00:24:46one moment changed everything. One of the wilder games I covered was a playoff game. Steelers are
00:24:55at Cincinnati. It's very close. It's an intense atmosphere. Two teams that absolutely hate each
00:25:00other. The Steelers, Bengals rivalry goes a long way back. The Bengals and the Steelers don't like each
00:25:05other. I love Pittsburgh, but they're not Cincinnati. I still love her despite her team preference.
00:25:14There was so much hype and anticipation because this was by far the NFL's best rivalry
00:25:20at the time. Pretty much in every game they had played, someone got hurt, someone got fined.
00:25:27Everybody knows that this is what has happened in these games between these two teams for over a decade.
00:25:33Yeah. So in Cincinnati, Steelers are down. Final minute, they have the ball.
00:25:41You see Antonio Brown go over the middle and it's like slow motion. You see him
00:25:46about to go for the ball. Ben Roethlisberger delivers it.
00:25:51And then Vontaze Berfic, he just came in that helmet.
00:25:54And Antonio, when he got hit, I mean his arms just flew backward. It was not a pretty sight.
00:26:07It was a high state game and that particular hit could happen on any play. And Tony knows and other
00:26:15receivers know that can happen. As he got hit, you can see the body go limp and he was already unconscious.
00:26:26And then also he hits the back of his head on the, on the turf, which can be kind of a secondary
00:26:31injury process that happens. There were some gasps in the press box.
00:26:36Even though you couldn't really hear the hit, you could feel it. It was sort of soul stripping,
00:26:43you know? You're dealing with the reality of a, of a late game. It's very close. It's an intense
00:26:49atmosphere. But then there's this human element of, is this player okay?
00:26:54Is he going to get up? That was my first instinct. You need to get up. Tony was always one to get up.
00:27:01We considered him a rubber band. You hit him, he's going to jump back up.
00:27:06You don't want somebody to be able to say, you know what? I knocked Antonio Brown out of the game.
00:27:10He's going to get back in the game. And I think he lives his life that way as well.
00:27:16Are you out before you even hit the turf? Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:19Oh boy. Yeah, because he hit me right in the head, right before I hit the turf.
00:27:24Yeah. Memory loss?
00:27:25A little bit. You know, my coach was telling me I was smiling and talking to him like they
00:27:29thought it was regular, but I didn't recall any of it.
00:27:31What I thought at the time, which is kind of random, but the movie Rocky IV.
00:27:40Where Apollo Creed goes down to his eventual death.
00:27:44Just seeing the way his head moved in every direction and thinking about what was going on in
00:27:58his brain, how his brain was being rattled in there.
00:28:02If you had to rate concussions on the spectrum of, you know, mild or moderate or severe,
00:28:08I would probably rate that as one of the severe ones.
00:28:11Where the most force and the most injury to the brain is that diagonal head impact
00:28:15that Antonio Brown had.
00:28:16The worst part of that concussion after Burfik hit you as well?
00:28:20Yeah. Probably your energy, you know, your balance. You know, when you get a concussion,
00:28:25doing the eyes test with the symptoms usually make you real dizzy, lightheaded, and wanting to sleep a lot.
00:28:31The discussions around concussions, I would say that it really hit a fever pitch around the
00:28:37CBA negotiations in 2010. Players were fighting for their rights, so I remember it being intensified
00:28:42around that time. When Antonio Brown takes a hit like he did, a star player with helmet-to-helmet contact
00:28:48like that, it reintroduces the discussion all over again.
00:28:51I think we all had our antennas on and were so concerned that this kind of moment would happen.
00:28:58And this was the game where it was going to happen. And it happened to Antonio Brown.
00:29:05A lot of fans and even some of the media do speculate that when Antonio Brown took
00:29:10that hit from Vontaze Burfik that he wasn't quite the same afterwards.
00:29:19After the devastating Vontaze Burfik hit, the legend of Antonio Brown only grew.
00:29:25And as he continued to put up Hall of Fame numbers,
00:29:27he was still searching for something beyond the end zone, the spotlight.
00:29:32The idea of self-branding was becoming really big with football players.
00:29:35Antonio Brown believed, hey, I know I'm not going to last forever in the league, no one does,
00:29:38and I'm seeing this big opportunity here and I'm going to take it.
00:29:42He was doing commercials.
00:29:44When I think about Antonio Brown's game, he got it all on lock, haircut, check.
00:29:49Pushing his persona and things of that nature.
00:29:52In his prime, he had it going from the marketing standpoint. I mean, he had Pepsi.
00:29:56Antonio, what have you got in mind? A bit of a throwback.
00:29:59Pizza Hut.
00:30:00AB, is this it?
00:30:03He had a great smile, so he marketed that. I mean, he was on top of the world.
00:30:07When you're hot, man, you got to go get it. And when there's money to be got,
00:30:11you don't know how long it's going to last. So you got to keep that momentum going.
00:30:15In the NFL, if you're not a marquee quarterback, it's hard to get endorsements. It is not easy to
00:30:19get big money. Peyton Manning was like in every other commercial.
00:30:23That's okay, Wendy. That was a good carry. You're still the man. You're the man.
00:30:27You know, maybe Aaron Rodgers. It's the perfect thing for game time with the guys.
00:30:31You'd see Ben Roethlisberger pop up. I want to head back inside.
00:30:35But it was rare to see a black NFL player. And it seemed that the NFL was embracing that,
00:30:41given 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
00:30:55of stardom. The idea that he was on there with no helmet, the part that makes that interesting is
00:31:00not simply that it allows for his face to be seen, but it is also a reflection of the fact that he has
00:31:06been known as the sort of guy who would be there without his helmet on. Look at me right now.
00:31:12And that is a reflection of who the man was. When I talked to AB about being on the cover of Madden,
00:31:16he talked a lot about wanting to inspire people. His work ethic is incredible. And that has been an
00:31:22inspiration to a lot of young people, a lot of adults. All this, and he would be like,
00:31:28Coach, I'm doing this just so I can feed my family, so I can make sure we are good to go forever.
00:31:34The problem is that when you're at that stage, you live in a glass bowl, everybody sees you.
00:31:43You're not invincible and you're not invisible, and you can't afford to make mistakes.
00:31:49And the more that he realized that he's special in the league and that he, you know, had arrived,
00:31:57it did go from, you know, Antonio Brown to the AB character.
00:32:05I do think it exerted a pressure on him to feel like he had to be this character.
00:32:10I mean, it was literally the AB show minute to minute. And I feel like because of that,
00:32:18there were times that he struggled to go back to Antonio Brown.
00:32:21I think his image was very important to him because he had done something incredible and he was
00:32:29trying to balance these impulses that he had for attention and for being his own person and doing
00:32:35his own thing to going with the team and being part of the squad. Attention is a drug and everybody's
00:32:42on it. The Steelers culture is something that is beloved by players who have gone through that
00:32:48system and believed in that culture and believed that the culture is about the team first and
00:32:54players second. As the veterans slowly left the team, retired, that truly changed that leadership
00:33:00in the Steelers locker room. And I think when you have a guy like Antonio Brown who really thrived on
00:33:06being led, I think to keep them sort of on the straight and narrow, when those reins sort of get
00:33:10loosened, I think that may have had an effect on his sort of performance and behavior.
00:33:15After a game in 2017, we're in the press box and we're trying to file our stories. And I'm getting
00:33:23emails from editors saying, hey, like Antonio Brown's on Facebook broadcasting live from the
00:33:27locker room. The Steelers culture is really tight knit. Their locker room, especially with sacrosanct.
00:33:33You can't live broadcast what the head coach is saying when he's addressing the team after a game,
00:33:37because a lot of times that head coach thinks that what he's saying is confined to that room and not
00:33:43to be broadcast publicly. And Mike Tomlin had called the Patriots these assholes.
00:33:49That was a private moment for Mike Tomlin. That's like a betrayal, right? That's like a family
00:33:54member giving away a secret online. Antonio Brown decided to go live on Facebook for 17 minutes.
00:34:00Probably not the best idea. That was the first time I started to think about
00:34:07mental health, wondering like, is that narcissism? Is that bipolar? Like there was something that was
00:34:14not right. Mike Tomlin came out swinging in his press conference, held Antonio Brown's feet to the
00:34:19fire, held him accountable. That created more negative response to anything he did, I think,
00:34:25from Mike Tomlin. The reason why is it violated the Steelers culture. You don't violate that locker room.
00:34:31Antonio Brown knew better. He should have known better. And he did apologize for it later.
00:34:35I was really sorry about that moment. Got a little excited. But the deed was done, right? And I think
00:34:41it really sort of exhibited that mindset that was continually developing with him. You know,
00:34:46I never meant to embarrass the organization, to put my teammates feeling a certain way or misrepresent
00:34:52myself. The Steelers huddled up and had to figure out a fine assessment for Antonio Brown.
00:34:56$10,000 isn't overly steep considering that it was a pretty bad violation. The $10,000 fine is just,
00:35:03you know, it's something that Antonio Brown goes back to and laughs about. Like,
00:35:06I can't believe I did something so silly. I can't wait until I figure out what I'm going to do next
00:35:09week on social media now. You know, it's like, that's not, it's not a deterrent.
00:35:14I'm just a good guy with a good heart and got good intention. And it was a mistake. And, uh,
00:35:18I done moved forward from it. No matter what happens with a player, it's still a production league.
00:35:25Nobody produced on the field like Antonio Brown. The Steelers go on to sign Brown,
00:35:31give him the contract he's been wanting. It was 68 million and 19 million guaranteed.
00:35:39It's really telling that he got a big contract right after that video episode, right? A few weeks
00:35:43later, he's making more money than anyone else. And I think for Antonio Brown, it was just further,
00:35:47further verification, right? That look, I'm bigger than, than the game and that there's nothing anyone
00:35:52can do. You know what they say, more money, more problems, right? And so now that you've got this big
00:35:57contract, you start interacting with more people that includes, you know, third-party contractors.
00:36:02That includes, you know, people who are a support staff in your life. It's incredibly hard to deal
00:36:08with that much money when you don't have any background or training or stability or foundation.
00:36:13You haven't been taught anything. The people who are supposed to help you with it may be looking out
00:36:18for you. They may be looking out for themselves. They may be robbing you. It leads to a great deal of
00:36:23distrust of the people who are around them. And any insecurities or any lack of self-esteem that
00:36:30you have is actually going to be exacerbated by these things because the money and the prestige
00:36:35and everything that comes around it, it could paper over whatever the problems are, but they're not going
00:36:39to go away. Around 2018, there was just a potpourri of problems that you wouldn't think he'd have to
00:36:47deal with with his level of fame and the money he had. Court records and claims of unpaid bills of
00:36:54people that worked for him that he refused to pay. Reports of behaving badly toward the woman he was
00:37:00with. Videos of him throwing things out of the window. And this went beyond normal, like, he's a
00:37:07character behavior. This was a portrait of a man that could be charitably described as being erratic.
00:37:14For the Steelers, it had all started to become a bit more frustrating. They had clearly made
00:37:20the decision that as long as he was responsible in a football sense, which he had been, then they
00:37:24could overlook and ignore everything else. And it started to feel like that was starting to be a
00:37:30little looser and that none of the rest of this could overcome the fact that he was starting to look
00:37:36like he was losing it. There are people who believe that Antonio Brown really wanted to be recognized
00:37:43as the X factor on that team. 2018, you know, I had like 15 touchdowns, 1200 yards, 100 catches. I think
00:37:51that was my sixth season doing it. And that's when I realized that, you know, people don't really
00:37:56appreciate greatness. And there were times that I remember Antonio Brown felt that Mike Tomlin was
00:38:03prioritizing Ben Roethlisberger. Ben was always going to be the top of the pecking order there. The
00:38:09offense was changing to tailor it more towards Ben's new abilities. That mission was almost
00:38:15diametrically opposed to getting Antonio Brown the looks that he wanted to get. That was not
00:38:20something that I think he felt good about. I think Ben Roethlisberger resented it because I think Ben
00:38:24Roethlisberger probably felt like I helped make him. Like we were teammates and all of a sudden you're
00:38:30coming out and speaking out against me because I'm throwing the ball to you now. His source of feeling
00:38:34good is through achievements, accomplishments, and adulation. When you have a conflict with that,
00:38:44then it breaks that down. And then it breaks down trust. It breaks down the bond. And those are
00:38:52things I really think that he thrives off and needs. Today has Steelers Nation on edge after
00:38:59responding to a former Steelers employee on Twitter with Trade Me. Eventually Steelers were starting to
00:39:05reach a boiling point with Antonio Brown. He missed a walkthrough. There was an incident in a practice
00:39:12where he and Ben Roethlisberger were at odds. And then Mike Tomlin's like, hey, just don't show up for
00:39:17Sunday. You know, we're going to roll without you. When he benched Antonio Brown, everyone was really
00:39:22surprised. And I think there was a little bit of a, wow, Tomlin finally did it. Like Tomlin really
00:39:28did it. It was like, wow, this A must have really gotten bad. And B made me like Tomlin, you know,
00:39:35had had enough. Antonio Brown gets benched in the game against the Bengals and comes onto the field
00:39:40briefly with a fur coat on. The official haberdashery of making a point of the NFL player is the fur coat.
00:39:47That is not a man that is trying to blend in with everything else that is going on. That is a
00:39:52man that is making a point that he's the guy in the fur coat. You guys are not.
00:39:56Matt told us a lot about his future there with the Steelers. It was a big middle finger to everybody,
00:40:01clearly. And I think it was also him trying to push the buttons to get him out of there.
00:40:05Because I think at that point he knew he needed to go. I think he probably felt like he had bigger,
00:40:09bigger opportunities elsewhere too. I feel like when I went to the Steelers, Mike Tomlin was,
00:40:15man, that dude was like my pops, to be honest. So I'm always, for me, indebted to Mike Tomlin. Like,
00:40:22he was one of those guys that stood on the foxhole for me. Always
00:40:28had my back. Always believed in me.
00:40:31You know, at the end of the day, Mike Tomlin is about winning and is about the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:40:38Is it Mike Tomlin's job to raise Antonio Brown, a 20-something-year-old man? Like, no.
00:40:45It's his job to put out the best product on the field. It's not their job to fix Antonio Brown.
00:40:51Call me, Mr. Big Chef.
00:41:01For the early part of his career, Antonio Brown was known by many names, from A.B. to Mr.
00:41:07Business' Boomin' to Tony Totap. But by 2019, his relationship with the Steelers had completely
00:41:14fractured and he was demanding to be called a new name.
00:41:17Call me, Mr. Big Chef. Big Chef for now.
00:41:21And what once seemed like a match made in heaven, was now going through a very nasty and very public
00:41:27breakup. If your team got guaranteed money, they want to get to know me and work with me,
00:41:33tell them call me. There was just so much chaos, you know, in the headlines. The engagement was off
00:41:39the roof that year. A meltdown has taken place before our very eyes. Antonio Brown is done with
00:41:45the Steelers. And he is burning down every possible bridge he can on his exit out.
00:41:53The fact that the Steelers had just extended Antonio Brown and then had to trade him illustrates how
00:41:58desperate they were to move on. They seem to understand when good business goes bad.
00:42:04And they had to assume $20 million of their salary cap that they can't spend on anybody else. That's how
00:42:12much they wanted to get rid of him. Antonio Brown gets his wish. The Steelers ship A.B. off to the
00:42:19Raiders and the three-year deal worth $50 million makes him the NFL's highest paid receiver and sends
00:42:26ripples around the league. When the Steelers traded Antonio Brown to the Raiders, I think the expectation
00:42:31was that he was going to be able to contribute immediately and elevate the Raiders' offense.
00:42:35Mike Mayak was a new GM in his own right at that time. Obviously, that was a huge acquisition.
00:42:41There was a lot of pressure for things to go smoothly.
00:42:47And it didn't. He did not play a single game for the Raiders.
00:42:51It's just nothing but drama the entire time. I mean, he had frostbite on his feet.
00:42:59A lot of the drama started off in training camp with him burning his feet in the cryotherapy
00:43:04chamber. His feet just ballooned. It looked like he had 15 bunions on his big toe. I've never heard of
00:43:14a player burning their feet in a cryotherapy chamber. And it was just like, it was so crazy because of all
00:43:21things to happen. It's like, what? He can't practice because of what?
00:43:25Antonio Brown is a workhorse, and he does really care about his regiment and taking care of his
00:43:30body. So something that should have been really good as far as showing that he is dedicated to
00:43:37his craft and the things that make him better ended up again turning into another drama headline
00:43:43that should not have been.
00:43:44And then on top of that, there was a dispute over the type of helmet he wanted to wear versus
00:43:49what the NFL and the team were asking him to wear.
00:43:52All right. Well, after days of controversy, Oakland Raiders wide receiver Antonio Brown will
00:43:57not be allowed to wear his old helmet this season.
00:43:59He really, really, really did not want to wear this new helmet and went through all these things
00:44:04to avoid wearing the new helmet, including painting his old helmet to try to make it look like
00:44:08the new helmet. And after a point, it started to feel like self-sabotage.
00:44:13I just think that at that time, Antonio Brown was in full AB mode, and it was really more about
00:44:19he wasn't going to be told something about what he preferred. You know, and it's unfortunate because
00:44:25he really needed a good start with the Raiders.
00:44:28Training camp is a very rapid, very crucial aspect of an NFL season. It's when everyone's coalescing,
00:44:36and having this sideshow was just a huge detriment.
00:44:41I think when the Pittsburgh Steelers initially traded Antonio, the feeling was that they had
00:44:46made a mistake. And then people saw his behavior in Oakland and felt, oh, maybe not. You know,
00:44:53maybe Mike Tomlin was sort of the Antonio Brown whisperer, and they just had enough of it.
00:44:59There were a lot of things that Mike Tomlin helped to buffer. Mike Tomlin kept things
00:45:04behind closed doors, especially if you're trying to make a trade. It's not up to the Steelers to
00:45:08put all that out there to the Raiders as well. It's up to them to do their homework. But also,
00:45:13you have to remember that the acquisition with Antonio Brown to the Raiders was pretty abrupt.
00:45:18So I don't know that they had as much time to do as much back work on Antonio Brown.
00:45:24Raiders general manager Mike Mayock told reporters he felt they now exhausted their
00:45:28options attempting to get Brown's helmet approved.
00:45:30From our perspective, it's time for him to be all in, we're all out.
00:45:34You don't go to mandatory training camp, you get fined. Like, that's just the deal. And then
00:45:40once he's posting the fines, it was clear that this was gonna end pretty quickly.
00:45:46And then it culminates in him storming off a practice field and a shouting match with the
00:45:53GM of the Raiders, whom he called a cracker. Can I say cracker?
00:45:59Whom he publicly called a cracker.
00:46:01And then Antonio Brown recorded his coach. I think Gruden was desperate, right, at that point.
00:46:08Hello. Yo, what's up, coach? What the hell's going on, man?
00:46:12We didn't know he was recording the call at the time, but obviously by the time Antonio Brown
00:46:17publicizes it, we realize, wow, you know, that's uncouth.
00:46:22Let me ask you this. Do you want to be a Raider or not?
00:46:25It really was the final nail in the coffin to say, you know what, enough of this.
00:46:30Yes, we really need him. Yes, he's Antonio Brown, but we have to move on.
00:46:34Well, what were the Raiders going to do at that point? I mean, they had a season to start. At some
00:46:40point, you just have to say it and like pull the plug.
00:46:44It is very rare that you see a player as good as Antonio Brown change teams. And very rare that
00:46:50you have the star power of Antonio Brown and John Gruden in the same place. Like, this was a huge,
00:46:56giant story, which then made it an even bigger story once it became clear that this was not going
00:47:02to work. We get this video once he's finally released by the Raiders in the preseason.
00:47:06The Raiders are free!
00:47:14Grandma, they freed me! They freed me, grandma!
00:47:20I honestly feel like that drama carried over because he was still processing not being a stealer.
00:47:26And sometimes when you get another job, any of us, and it's not really maybe what you really
00:47:34would have wanted or it ended in a way that you really didn't want, you're still in the process
00:47:39of processing that. And I think that that is an ongoing theme with Antonio Brown and A.B., this A.B.
00:47:48character that he also developed. I feel like he's just always, to a degree, been in survival mode.
00:47:55Football is back, but the weekend was hijacked by Antonio Brown.
00:47:58Antonio never ends up playing a game for the Raiders and almost immediately signs a one-year,
00:48:04$15 million deal with the Patriots with a $9 million signing bonus.
00:48:08I think it's a good move. I think he's going to come here. He's going to do great.
00:48:11It's very much a prove-it deal. Can you have the same success here that you had in the first section
00:48:16of your career? He's got attitude problems. Everyone's going to say that. But I mean,
00:48:21we got Belichick. I think to a lot of observers,
00:48:24the Patriots were actually the perfect place for Antonio Brown.
00:48:27The Patriots were already the villain of the NFL. If you're not a Patriots fan,
00:48:31you really don't like them. You don't like Brady. You don't like Belichick.
00:48:34And now they've added the ultimate joker, the ultimate wild card.
00:48:38What the Patriots had proven over the years, mostly successfully, was that they could take players
00:48:44who didn't fit in at other programs and get them in line in New England. If you care about football,
00:48:51and you love winning games, and you're willing to be selfless, you can be successful here and we'll
00:48:56forget about the things you did in the past. How can you help our team? How can you help us win?
00:49:01Okay, what kind of trouble are you in? What can we do about it? Talent trumps trouble. That's how
00:49:08the NFL rolls. Like, it always has. I think it always will. None of it really matters what people
00:49:14think or what they say. What matters is us as teammates working hard to get it right. I'm sure
00:49:20Tom Brady was kind of salivating, thinking like, what can I do with this dude? What's the reaction
00:49:27across the NFL to the side? Oh, shit. They're going to win the Super Bowl again.
00:49:32Just three days into signing with the Patriots, he's accused in a civil suit of sexual assault.
00:49:51In the documents that were put forth yesterday, Brittany Taylor alleges that Brown assaulted her
00:49:56three different times. Brittany Taylor is a former college classmate and a gymnast at Central Michigan
00:50:02University. They become Bible study partners together during their athletic careers. Brittany
00:50:08transfers to LSU. Antonio Brown goes on to the NFL and becomes an all-pro superstar wide receiver.
00:50:15They keep up that friendship from a distance. She ends up being a gymnastics coach as well as a
00:50:20physical trainer. Antonio Brown allegedly rekindles the friendship and introduces a business partnership
00:50:28where he hires Brittany Taylor to be a trainer to work on his lower extremities. And from there,
00:50:35the relationship is alleged to have turned sexual by Brown. She accuses Antonio Brown of masturbating
00:50:41and ejaculating on her back while she was not paying attention and then later of sexual assault,
00:50:47of rape. The 2018 incident, as alleged, the most serious, forcible rape, refusal to stop,
00:50:54even though she was screaming and yelling for him to stop. That is the accusation.
00:50:58And obviously, any time that a player of Antonio Brown's caliber is mentioned in a lawsuit,
00:51:06it's going to get attention.
00:51:07Brown denies the allegations, posting this video on social media.
00:51:11The devil's going to try to bring you down when you get closer to your goals.
00:51:14Antonio's relationship with Brittany Taylor is complicated because it starts out as a business
00:51:19relationship. And throughout, Brittany Taylor and her mother are seeking forms of investment in
00:51:26the business. Another factor is that in the first instance, when he was alleged to have ejaculated on
00:51:32her back, after he apologizes, she comes back and returns to his employ.
00:51:39Days later, Sports Illustrated reported that it had been in contact with another woman.
00:51:47This young woman talks to us and she tells us that Antonio Brown essentially crossed that
00:51:54employer-employee barrier and made it sexual. Allegedly, Antonio Brown offers to hire this young woman
00:52:02to paint a mural of him in his own home. The woman agrees and very quickly things go off the rails.
00:52:08She spends the first day painting this mural without incident. She comes back the second day,
00:52:14she's on her knees painting Antonio Brown on the wall and turns around and Antonio Brown is standing
00:52:21behind her naked with just a hand towel over his penis. And when she ignored him and turned him down,
00:52:30she was fired. She chose to be anonymous in our story. We protected her anonymity out of fear of
00:52:36retaliation and that fear ended up being validated. After our story published, which came on the heels of the
00:52:43sexual assault lawsuit against Antonio Brown, Antonio Brown allegedly added her to a group text
00:52:49with him and several of his associates, including his personal lawyer, took screenshots of her Instagram
00:52:55page and shared photos of her kids with this group of people. Accused her of being broke and seeking
00:53:02money and being a bad mother. And she ended up taking screenshots, taking it to her lawyer. Her lawyer
00:53:10brought it to the NFL. Of course, we reached out to Antonio to try to get his side of the story.
00:53:16Antonio's response though, when I texted him to try to get comment was out of here, clown.
00:53:25We wrote a follow-up story at Sports Illustrated on this apparent attempt at intimidation. And for the
00:53:32Patriots, that was the last straw.
00:53:38All right, the New England Patriots had just released Antonio Brown following sexual assault
00:53:43accusations against him. You know, at that point, he was such a distraction and just such a mess.
00:53:51I mean, everything about Antonio Brown has been almost like a Charlie Sheen-esque debacle.
00:53:57You have to really be a problem to be that talented and figure out a way to get off of
00:54:03three NFL teams in a span of six months. I think the Patriots would have kept them
00:54:09even beyond the sexual assault accusation, even beyond this new accusation of, you know, mistreating
00:54:17this woman and his employee. But once he texts her and this group of people with screenshots of her
00:54:24kid, I just thought, oh, well, he's done. You know, he may not work in the NFL ever again.
00:54:30I think when Antonio Brown called out Ben Roethlisberger and Robert Kraft for their own
00:54:36transgressions. He had a series of tweets, as I mentioned, some of them that have since been deleted.
00:54:41He's implying that there's a double standard in how he has been treated versus how others who've been
00:54:45accused of sexual assault or misconduct have been treated. I had a lot of mixed feelings about it
00:54:50because here we have Brown out there being accused. But then he he does have a point that those two
00:54:58got shoved under the rug. Basically, the Kraft masseuse incident and then Ben Roethlisberger, most notably,
00:55:06two very documented incidents in 2008 and 2010, and then the NFL reducing his punishment from six
00:55:14games to four games for good behavior. Like, he literally got the same as Tom Brady did for
00:55:20Deflategate. When Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault, women were not really being
00:55:26believed. This is before Me Too. We did not recognize there was a widespread culture of
00:55:33powerful men victimizing women, raping women. That context did not yet exist. You add on top of that,
00:55:42this is a white Super Bowl winning heroic quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And so that's absolutely
00:55:49going to get dealt with differently because of time, because of place, because of race than a similar
00:55:56allegation against AP. Without the game of football that had grounded him for years, Antonio's life was
00:56:07now in complete disarray. She's here to take the kids to school, not no vehicle. This bitch is broke.
00:56:14She don't drop billies. Chelsea Kyrus is the mother of four of Antonio Brown's children. Look at her.
00:56:19She's a lost cause. Look at her. Now, when you're released by the Patriots, that gives you a lot of
00:56:25time in your day to be doing things that you probably shouldn't be doing. We've seen celebrity
00:56:31meltdowns before. I think Antonio Brown is unique in that he filmed it all himself. She evicted. She
00:56:38shouldn't be here. You guys should know that. He's filming himself screaming out on his front lawn
00:56:43with a bag of penis-shaped candy. It's very hard to relate with a lot of that. The bag of dicks.
00:56:51Hey, Chuck, look at the bag of dicks. Fish head. Fish head. It was bad. I mean,
00:56:56the way he was speaking to the mother of his child, like just the whole thing, the filming of it.
00:57:01The 2020 years of stuff that escalated with Tony was different. When AB wasn't playing football,
00:57:09he was having a hard time and a lot of stuff started bubbling up. Clearly,
00:57:12it was building over time. And everything started to just avalanche on top of him.
00:57:24January 2020. As Antonio's erratic behavior continued to escalate,
00:57:29it was enough to push one longtime confidant over the edge.
00:57:33Drew Rosenhaus is this NFL super agent, and he stuck with Antonio Brown through Pittsburgh,
00:57:39through Oakland, through New England, through the sexual assault accusations. Drew Rosenhaus to then
00:57:45throw his hands up and say, I'm done. I think that's a huge turning point for Antonio Brown. Because at that
00:57:52point, it's hard to find anybody who's in his corner.
00:57:59Broward County Regional Communications, may I help you?
00:58:02The guy is high. He smoked. He threatened me. He's trying to fight. He throw stones in my truck.
00:58:08I need the police. I need to make the report.
00:58:11Antonio Brown was having some items moved from California to his home in Florida. And there was
00:58:18a disagreement with a moving truck driver about whether he had to pay money before the truck
00:58:24driver could release Antonio Brown's items to him.
00:58:27The moving truck case, the charges were assault, burglary, and criminal mischief. Antonio Brown first
00:58:46pleaded not guilty and then later pleaded no contest and was sentenced to a term of probation of two years.
00:58:55Antonio Brown's string of troublesome incidents led NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to address his
00:59:03situation publicly. Goodell prioritized Antonio Brown's well-being and talked about resources available
00:59:09to all players through the league and the NFL Players Association. Roger Goodell talking about the
00:59:16mental health resources being offered to Antonio Brown is unique in that it's sort of an acknowledgement
00:59:23that there may be a mental health issue there, whether it's some sort of mental illness that
00:59:28is either undiagnosed or hasn't been disclosed or some sort of physical condition. I mean,
00:59:34many speculated that concussions played a role. He hasn't been the same. If you're a real AV fan,
00:59:38you know he hasn't been the same since he was hit in 2016. His head got up after this. Concussions in
00:59:43football had simply been taken as a thing that would happen. It is at the beginning of the 2010s
00:59:50that the league, largely under the threat of litigation from a lot of places, decided that
00:59:55they were going to do something about cutting down on the number of head injuries. And from there,
01:00:00fans kind of took suit also and came to understand that this is a game that is going to have to change
01:00:06and they're looking out for head injuries was going to be an issue. Not a hot take. He never recovered
01:00:10from the hit he took from Montez Perfect against Cincinnati. He just never did.
01:00:14The flip side is fans are not doctors. They're not able to make diagnoses of injuries. All they know
01:00:22is that if you get hit in the head, there's a chance that you have suffered a concussion.
01:00:28A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury that heals itself usually around one month on the high
01:00:34end, but most people resolve within one to two weeks. But what can happen is people can continue to
01:00:40have symptoms beyond that one month time period. Studies have shown the duration being up to a year
01:00:45to three years. Also, any anxiety, depression, any behavioral issues that you go into a concussion
01:00:53with can potentially be significantly exacerbated by a concussion. You know, whether it's schizophrenics
01:00:59that have concussions that now their hallucinations are a lot worse, as well as bipolar disorder.
01:01:04So certainly someone having a concussion and the behavioral issues getting worse afterwards
01:01:08wouldn't be something that's very surprising to us. Then we began to learn more and more,
01:01:14and we find out about something called CTE. CTE is chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
01:01:20It's a kind of dementia that ends up developing. And one of the primary risk factors for chronic
01:01:27traumatic encephalopathy is hitting your head over and over and over again. So repetitive head injuries.
01:01:32That then became a catch-all term for just about any strange behavior that you witness from a football
01:01:38player was then blamed on CTE without a sophisticated knowledge of what happened.
01:01:43And I think CTE is a completely different animal because it involves hitting your head. It can involve
01:01:47concussions, but likely involves more sub-concussive head injuries. And there's this law where you don't
01:01:52have any symptoms and maybe you feel okay. And then you begin to have symptoms several years later.
01:01:59Behavioral issues are one of the first presenting signs of CTE. Impulse control, angry outbursts,
01:02:05significant irritability are three primary symptoms that we tend to see. It's impossible to diagnose
01:02:11while they're alive. The only diagnosis comes after they're dead when you cut open their brain and you
01:02:16look at their brain under a microscope to be able to determine, you know, does the protein deposition
01:02:22have a pattern that is characteristic of CTE. And it's particularly difficult in the population
01:02:29that we're discussing right now, the NFL, because we know that these people in specific cases can be
01:02:35predisposed to mental illness, but then also you have the CTE thing lingering, right? Which one of the
01:02:42presenting symptoms is mental illness. When Antonio Brown got hit in the head by Vontaze Berfic, correct
01:02:50or not. He became the face of CTE in the NFL, the face of a disease that can only be diagnosed in
01:02:58dead people. It's obvious Antonio Brown has issues, but all those issues, CTE, or all those issues,
01:03:04because he's a jerk. There's questions about Antonio Brown, his behavior, you know, whether his
01:03:09behavior is related to CTE or not. It's hard for me to pin everything that happened from a behavioral
01:03:15standpoint on this one concussion that he had. I can't say that. There's like, there's so many
01:03:20other factors. We all want a simple explanation for things in life, right? There sometimes isn't
01:03:25one simple, pure explanation for things. With Antonio Brown, it just feels like there's a lot more play.
01:03:30So it becomes difficult to untangle that and figure out what exactly is going on, especially in this day
01:03:38and age where you've got all sorts of, can I curse? You got all sorts of on social media that's telling
01:03:45people that, hey, you know, AB, you had that one concussion in that game against the Bengals.
01:03:52That's when you had CTE, right? Before Vontaze Berfic turned his brain into scrambled eggs,
01:03:58Antonio Brown was the best receiver in the NFL and a top five wide receiver of all time.
01:04:05An individual is made up of a lot of other factors and is influenced by a lot of other factors other
01:04:11than this one thing, right? Obviously, as a reporter, I feel like one of the things that I always try to
01:04:20achieve is getting big exclusives and big interviews. And obviously, I was very well aware that Antonio
01:04:26Brown had not done an interview since the time that he had gone through all of this circus in the off
01:04:34season. I'm just like, look, AB, you know, would obviously love for you to do this if you could.
01:04:39And classic AB, you know, he didn't give me the answer right then and there. So later in the week,
01:04:44I'm covering the Super Bowl and I was told that I was clear from this live shot. And the next day,
01:04:50I'm showing up for work again to do stuff with SportsCenter. I think word had got back that I hadn't
01:04:55done this live shot. And someone was saying that I wasn't excused. And of course, I find out that I
01:05:03was in big trouble. And you know, the SportsCenter people were going to take me off SportsCenter
01:05:08during Super Bowl, which was a huge deal. And I knew as a result of that, that my career was in
01:05:15trouble at ESPN. It was a big deal, big deal. And I was devastated. And on my way, leaving the 49ers
01:05:23hotel, I get a phone call out of nowhere. And it was Antonio Brown. I just burst into tears on the
01:05:32phone. Antonio Brown's like, what's going on? What's happening? What happened? What did they do to you?
01:05:39I'm repeating the story. I think it's over and all this other stuff. And he was like, oh, no, no,
01:05:43no, no. We're going to give you this interview. We are going to give you this interview.
01:05:48We all came into his personal gym. We waited for hours for Antonio Brown to show up in that parking
01:05:53lot. And you know, I'm sitting with producers and they keep asking me, is AB going to show up?
01:05:57Is AB going to show up? Boy, let me tell you, he gave me a run from my money with my nerves.
01:06:02But I kept telling those producers that he was going to keep his word.
01:06:05For everything people say about AB, I knew he was going to keep his word because I knew that the
01:06:15interaction with him and I was authentic. He might have been late, but he was going to show up.
01:06:21And then all of a sudden, this yellow Lamborghini comes out of nowhere, vroom,
01:06:25vroom, vrooming through the parking lot. I think it was like midnight or 1 a.m. And Antonio Brown kept his
01:06:31word. First of all, Antonio, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sitting down with us. We appreciate
01:06:35it. I've always known that there's a caring side to Antonio Brown. Players don't have to do one-on-ones,
01:06:42even in the locker room. And they do that because that's their affirmation of you as a reporter,
01:06:46the trust that they have in you. And they're showing that they care also about your career.
01:06:51Can you just describe what it's been like for you to be out of the NFL for 138 days since your last
01:06:57and only game with the Patriots September 15th last year? Having the game taken away from me that
01:07:03many days been a little frustrated emotionally, but I think I just miss playing. My mindset with him
01:07:10in that interview was really to try to get to the essence of why he felt this was happening. We all
01:07:18react emotionally sometimes when things happen, but people don't really know what led up to
01:07:25an emotional reaction. But also trying to see what he was willing to put on tape as far as what he was
01:07:32also sorry for. And do you feel like you owe anybody in the NFL an apology? I think I owe the whole NFL
01:07:41apology and my past behavior. You know, I think I could have done a lot of things better. I mean,
01:07:48I do think obviously that he knows that there are some behaviors that need to be rolled back. So I try to
01:07:53make sure not only I'm practicing my mental health, I'm talking to like my friends on my level who could
01:08:01encourage my mental health. And just real quick, just because you mentioned your mental health,
01:08:06do you have any concerns of having CTE at all? I just got a whole lot of money. That's it.
01:08:15I can't say that when I was doing that interview that I was expecting him to say, yes, you know, I feel that
01:08:21after this hit, you know, there may be something wrong with my brain or, you know, I'm displaying
01:08:27maybe more mental issues as a result. But at the same time, I do think he was cognizant that he was
01:08:36dealing with emotional ghosts of things that were still haunting him from his past that I think he's
01:08:43for sure a tune enough to recognize. I just don't think he was ready to attribute it to a big notorious
01:08:51hit. You don't typically have players as good as Antonio Brown who become available in the middle of
01:08:57an NFL season. Like that is an uncommon thing. And Tom Brady still really likes Antonio Brown and wants to
01:09:06play with him on his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He follows Tom Brady to Tampa Bay and he gets
01:09:14one 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
01:09:28and he can seem like he's got himself back on the rails. He gets the second and third and fourth
01:09:35chance with all sorts of people and organizations. And I think that's part of his charm and his ability
01:09:40to convince people. So it's not surprising that Tom Brady would say, sure, let's try it again.
01:09:46Tom Brady really putting in the work to make sure that it happened, because obviously with all of
01:09:50that stuff going on, he was going to have to convince Bruce Arians that he was going to be a model citizen.
01:09:58The Tampa Bay Bucs Super Bowl 55 champs.
01:10:02After nine seasons with the Steelers and failed stints with the Raiders and Patriots,
01:10:07Antonio Brown finally got what he had been searching for, a Super Bowl ring.
01:10:12I love Tampa. Tampa's a beautiful city. We won the Super Bowl, first team ever in their own city to win
01:10:17a Super Bowl. Not only was it a redemption for him to win a Super Bowl with Tom Brady, but it was a
01:10:22restoration from all of the things that people were saying about him, what they felt about him,
01:10:28the negative headlines that were getting attached to his name.
01:10:31Let's go! Let's go Bucs!
01:10:33Let's go Bucs! Let's go Bucs!
01:10:34Yeah, just an amazing moment for the entire Tampa Bay area.
01:10:38I mean, we won the Super Bowl and then it was the following year and next year.
01:10:44I realized the NFL just, it wasn't just on my side.
01:10:53In 2022, Antonio Brown has an ankle injury.
01:10:56The final straw in Antonio's NFL career is this back and forth with Bruce Arians
01:11:02on whether or not his ankle is well enough to play.
01:11:05He says he's hurt. He also had become the most unreliable narrator of all time. And few things can
01:11:11tear asunder the relationship between a football player and a team like a dispute over an injury.
01:11:15And that is what happened here.
01:11:16The Buccaneers entering that game week 17 against the Jets, they were fairly confident about their
01:11:22position. But for Antonio Brown, there was his ankle and whether he, you know, was at full capacity.
01:11:29The thin line between playing hurt and playing injured is the line that the NFL teeters on at all
01:11:34times. And the expectation is if you at all can play, you will play.
01:11:39And then we had the whole saga in game. You just saw him upset. You saw teammates trying to calm him down.
01:11:48He ultimately left the field without his jersey.
01:11:52Brown took off his jersey, shoulder pads and undershirt midway through the third quarter of
01:11:59the game before jogging off the field for good. Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians telling reporters
01:12:06after the game, quote, he is no longer a buck. It was horrific what he did walking off the field
01:12:12in that last game. I was like, he's not he's not getting in the Hall of Fame to do that. That's just a slap
01:12:22in the face to to everything the NFL stands for.
01:12:26And it ends up being this he said, she said. Antonio ends up accusing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of
01:12:36essentially pressuring him into playing while injured. And at this point in Antonio Brown's
01:12:42very public personal life, no one is inclined to believe his side of a he said, she said.
01:12:48In an effort to share his side of the story, Antonio Brown sat down for an exclusive interview with
01:12:54Nate Burleson on CBS mornings. In my mind, for the coach that, you know, I go to war with,
01:12:59I just text him I'm hurt that I'm trying to still suck it up. They'll go to war for you. Right.
01:13:04And like here in the midst of the battle. Yeah. You telling me get the hell out of here like I'm done.
01:13:21Antonio Brown's life after the NFL has been complex. This is a guy who, after making seven
01:13:30Pro Bowls in a nine year stretch, retires and supposedly works for Kanye West's company,
01:13:36Donda, as the head of Donda Sports. How did you link up with Kanye?
01:13:40Man, he was looking for me right when I walked off the field.
01:13:42Really? Yeah. He starts recording songs.
01:13:51Under the name AB, he briefly purchases and owns a National Arena League team with his father.
01:13:58He created his own YouTube page slash podcast called CTE SPN.
01:14:06We started to see even more bizarre things. You know,
01:14:09now Antonio Brown is posting about Tom Brady's wife.
01:14:13In early 2024, Antonio Brown filed for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a choice,
01:14:20as I have been told by other people who have done this YouTube's bankruptcy. It could mean
01:14:24a whole lot of different things, but it doesn't mean things are going well.
01:14:27Things get over here. You know, anybody can sue you, take you for whatever you got. You know,
01:14:31at this point, I don't work. I don't make millions of dollars where it's coming in where I could just
01:14:35force someone that money. So, you know, chapter 11, it's about re-scruttering.
01:14:39In his initial bankruptcy filing, Antonio Brown checked the box indicating that he had less than
01:14:45$50,000 in total assets. I think that would probably come as a surprise to anybody who followed his NFL
01:14:53career. You see stories like this following people who are flashy with money and seek validation from
01:15:03showing off their wealth, which we know is true about Antonio. I can't say that it was expected, but it
01:15:09wasn't unexpected. Life after retirement for all professional athletes is very difficult. There's
01:15:14nothing else that they can do to make 70,000 people cheer for them. If I'm not a wide receiver,
01:15:20then who am I? What is my purpose? What am I here to do? You know, you get a euphoria from playing
01:15:24this game. Even the pain of losses, there's a side of it that feels good, because at least you're part
01:15:31of something. There's nothing where you will have the relationships with the people in your life that
01:15:37you had with the people in that locker room. To leave that and to go to something else is jarring.
01:15:43Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
01:15:50Oh my God. He has a gun. Oh my God. That guy has a gun. Oh my God.
01:15:56Oh my God. The incident happened in mid-May 2025 at an amateur boxing event that was hosted by
01:16:11a well-known streamer named Aiden Ross. At Aiden Ross's Brand Risk boxing event, there was a
01:16:17situation that happened outside with Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown lost it again. Two shots go off.
01:16:24Essentially, there was some sort of dispute where Antonio Brown was seen being involved in some sort
01:16:31of fight with a small group of other people. It was an event with a lot of influencers. So you had a
01:16:44lot of people who were doing first-person videos. It's kind of chaotic. There are a lot of bodies
01:16:54a lot of fists flying. You couldn't see from the footage who started it. Antonio Brown had at one
01:17:07point allegedly grabbed a security guard's gun and fired two shots in the general direction of
01:17:15a former acquaintance.
01:17:16No, it's so much for... Oh hell. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
01:17:22Okay, get down, get down, get down.
01:17:26Shots were fired.
01:17:27At the time we knew that police had been called. Antonio Brown was briefly detained and questioned.
01:17:36Authorities said that they found two shell casings at the scene. Though, when they detained Antonio Brown,
01:17:43he did not have a weapon on him. But there were no charges filed. And shortly thereafter,
01:17:48Antonio Brown put out a statement clarifying that he had not been arrested and alleging that he had
01:17:54been jumped, essentially. Antonio Brown confirmed that somebody tried to snatch his iced-out chain
01:18:00after the event, which caused that whole situation. But there was a lot that was unclear about what had
01:18:07happened. Florida authorities obtained security footage that showed, allegedly, Antonio Brown's
01:18:15involvement and helped identify the alleged victim, Zul Karib Natambu. Zul Karib Natambu said in an
01:18:22interview with TMZ that he and Antonio Brown had had some beef and that it was actually Natambu who,
01:18:30after some sort of verbal altercation, was attacked by Brown.
01:18:34If you watched the video, everybody was attacking me. It was a 3v1. He went, got a gun, shot, wildfire,
01:18:41and we fought. He shot at me twice. Praise be to Allah, I wasn't hit.
01:18:44We started looking into who is Zul Karib Natambu and found that they had a history. Zul Karib Natambu
01:18:52allegedly first met Antonio Brown in 2022 when they were both in Dubai. Shortly after leaving
01:18:59the NFL, he was at this point in time traveling with the boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. According to
01:19:06the court records, Natambu had some jewelry that he agreed to let Antonio wear, presumably to help
01:19:13promote his jewelry business. Then when Natambu allegedly asked for the jewelry back, Brown
01:19:20said he didn't have it. After this back and forth, Antonio Brown allegedly gave Natambu
01:19:26a couple of gold chains to hold as collateral. Natambu then alleged that Antonio Brown went to Dubai
01:19:34authorities and claimed that Natambu had stolen the chains from Brown and led to him being jailed in
01:19:42Dubai for a period of several weeks. Listen, I spent 40 days in the Dubai jail because we were out there
01:19:49for Floyd Mayweather. He tried to defraud me out of a multi-pendant and a design that I was trying
01:19:54to go talk to, well, I was going to talk to Floyd about being an ambassador for. Natambu then filed a
01:20:00lawsuit against Antonio Brown for not returning the jewelry, which was estimated at six figures,
01:20:07and wrongful imprisonment. Antonio Brown initially did not respond to this lawsuit, which led to Natambu
01:20:16earning a judgment. And that judgment has, as far as I'm aware, still not been paid. Fast forward and
01:20:23the Washington Post reported that an arrest warrant was signed by a judge. He was charged with attempted
01:20:30second-degree murder. Well, a warrant has been issued for former Bucks receiver Antonio Brown for
01:20:40attempted murder. A.B. is wanted. What? Yes, you heard that right. Antonio Brown! What are we even doing
01:20:49here, Antonio Brown? Damn, A.B., this is not a good look, bro. The first thing I thought about was, thank God,
01:20:55he didn't actually kill somebody. After the arrest warrant was signed by a judge, within a week,
01:21:04he was posting clips on social media of himself in the Middle East, Dubai, in the UAE. Clips of him
01:21:12riding a bicycle and jumping at a trampoline park and getting a haircut.
01:21:18Ah, my eyes, all right, bro? No, this is too icy, bro. He also wrote on social media that the charges were
01:21:25unfounded, and he often posts on X and uses memes. And one of them, the caption was something like,
01:21:33Miami authorities, and it was people dressed up as clowns. The way that he was posting indicated that,
01:21:40from the Middle East, he was going to try to continue to live his life.
01:21:45Antonio Brown has claimed to be out of the country. You're going to need to come back to the United
01:21:51States at some point. I don't give a run, A.B. People on the run don't post their whereabouts.
01:21:57He was perhaps on the run, but certainly not running. Everybody, they knew where to find him.
01:22:03We have an update for you on the arrest of former NFL star Antonio Brown.
01:22:16Breaking news, Antonio Brown has been extradited from Dubai.
01:22:20They extradited A.B.'s ass back to America.
01:22:23Now he's got to face the consequences of his actions.
01:22:26Dude, talk about a guy whose CTE just absolutely destroyed his life.
01:22:32He was posting videos, riding a bike, kind of like laughing at the city of Miami,
01:22:37saying, hey, I'm in Dubai. Maybe he thought that we couldn't extradite from there.
01:22:41But we worked along with Dubai police, and he was taken into custody.
01:22:46A second-degree attempted murder charge in Florida is a first-degree felony.
01:22:50If Antonio Brown is found guilty, he could certainly face jail time.
01:22:54Prosecutors say he could face 30 years in prison.
01:22:56The guy I knew then wanted something, wanted to succeed, wanted to make it.
01:23:06I hope and I pray that things get better for him.
01:23:12Maybe this thing is a good scare. Bring him back right center.
01:23:15If you were to ask me do I think Antonio Brown would just voluntarily try to,
01:23:20in his right mind, attempt to kill someone, I would tell you no.
01:23:25It's unfortunate because, you know, Antonio Brown is an impresario in the NFL.
01:23:32It's unfortunate because he's a father. And it's unfortunate because you don't want to see
01:23:38anybody, let alone Antonio Brown, be associated with anything potentially criminal.
01:23:45Retired NFL wide receiver, Antonio Brown, pleads not guilty to attempted murder.
01:23:52Brown appeared virtually in a Miami courtroom today.
01:23:54In addition to the not guilty plea, Brown has also requested a jury trial.
01:23:59Man, all-time great.
01:24:06It's easy to judge the choices A.B. made.
01:24:09It's very difficult to understand and accept the reason why he made those choices and the history
01:24:16that led him to it.
01:24:18Antonio Brown's story is so complicated. It was a collision of events that have led him to the path
01:24:27that he's on, the upbringing, the massive amount of money, the adulation from the NFL, the chip on his
01:24:35shoulder, the wanting to prove himself, the falling in love with himself or hating himself. Maybe it's that.
01:24:41We don't know.
01:24:42His story says something about how you navigate life as someone in not just pro sports, but in the
01:24:50limelight, right? How difficult it is when you're influenced by money, when you're influenced by attention
01:24:56and star treatment to maintain your, if not sanity, your person, right? Who you are to maintain your core.
01:25:05I think the NFL has much more responsibility for the health of their players after they leave the
01:25:11league than what they've shown. These guys risk their lives for you. They're getting hit on the head
01:25:15every five minutes. They're gladiators. There's no way anybody can come out of that and be okay.
01:25:22And then you roll in there the millions of dollars, the fame, and these guys, man,
01:25:27it's hard to come out of that and be okay, let alone good.
01:25:32Right now, he's probably the biggest cautionary tale about the NFL and fame, the pressures athletes face.
01:25:40What can happen when people who don't have the right support system immediately get a whole
01:25:45bunch of money? If you're not in a program that's trying to address financial literacy,
01:25:51emotional health, mental health, and you are making a lot of money, there can be more Antonio
01:25:57Browns out there in the coming years. Last time I saw Antonio Brown was at a high
01:26:06school basketball game. I told him, hey man, you started to get gray hair and stuff like that. He was
01:26:11like, yeah, coach, a little stress. I said, yeah. I said, you know, you could take some of that stress
01:26:16away if it, you know, just do by doing the right thing. He was like, I know coach. He said, I'm trying.
01:26:22I don't think we definitively at this point have the answer for how it is that we got here. But the
01:26:30only thing we know is in the end, he's responsible for all of this. Tony, this is all happening on your
01:26:37watch. It's you. It's not other people. It's you. And you got to figure your way out of this somehow,
01:26:46some way. Even if there was help that he needed, he's responsible for being the one to go get it.
01:26:52And I think that it is easy to use him as an avatar to explore a lot of different issues. But the common
01:26:58denominator in everything that's happened to him, good or bad, is Antonio Brown. And when all said
01:27:02is done, the one that's going to have to answer for it all is him. I think Antonio, you know,
01:27:07there were moods and modes. What mood he was in, what mode he was in. I always worried about that,
01:27:14but for a long time, he did well. The one thing I would tell him is to open the book
01:27:22and rely on the only person you have ever counted on as Jesus. Go back to him.
01:27:30Because some of the things that are going on are going to bring you back to him anyway.
01:27:35And it can fall off the cliff. And I think if you see a guy as talented and as sharp as Antonio Brown was
01:27:43fall off that cliff, then you better believe you can too.
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