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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 f***?
00:00:21That s*** is crazy to me, bro. I'm not gonna lie.
00:00:23What 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.
00:00:48So, 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.
00:00:58Rape and two other instances of sexual assault.
00:01:00This is a loose cannon.
00:01:01Look at her. She's a f***ing lost cause. Look at her.
00:01:04You know what they say? More money, more problems.
00:01:07I think the ABU persona overtook him.
00:01:10Attention is a drug and everybody's on it.
00:01:12The devil gonna try to bring you down when you get closer to your goals.
00:01:15I never wanted to open up the paper one day and see something drastically went wrong with him.
00:01:22Oh my God, he has a gun!
00:01:24Oh my God!
00:01:25Get down, get down, get down!
00:01:26Shots were fired.
00:01:27Get down, get down, get down!
00:01:28Shots were fired.
00:01:29Wait a minute, what happened?
00:01:31We have absolutely reached rock bottom.
00:01:33Right now, he's probably the biggest cautionary tale about the NFL and fame.
00:01:39The 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.
00:01:58Nobody has that silver bullet final answer to the question of what happened to Antonio?
00:02:05What's wrong with Antonio?
00:02:07It'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
00:02:19hits 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
00:02:24know 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.
00:02:40To search for who Antonio Brown is, you have to take it back to the beginning, where it
00:02:45all started.
00:02:47I grew up in Liberty City, Miami.
00:02:54My grandma moved here from the Bahamas in the 1900s.
00:02:58Antonio Tavares Brown was born on July 10, 1988, at a time when the term, Welcome to Miami,
00:03:06was 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.
00:03:22It has its rough and tough areas.
00:03:27During the 90s, when Antonio was growing up in Liberty City, it's a tough place.
00:03:35We have three people shot.
00:03:37Two of them are known drug dealers on this corner.
00:03:40It was a rough upbringing.
00:03:41He grew up in a lot of poverty.
00:03:46John Doe gang was considered one of the most notorious gangs that ever was a part of the
00:03:53city of Miami.
00:03:54The 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.
00:04:10Growing 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
00:04:23and violence is that you carry that trauma with you every day.
00:04:27It is a traumatic existence, even if you're not shot at or chased or robbed, you're surrounded by that.
00:04:34It'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.
00:04:45Football is a game that helps you take your mind off the trauma and the pressure of the
00:04:49environment you're in or what's going around you.
00:04:52So 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.
00:05:09Once you put on the helmet and hit the field, you don't think about what's going on in the world.
00:05:13So football is presented, generally speaking, as something that can save souls, but very
00:05:19specifically 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 as a
00:05:28way to make sure that we keep these young men out of trouble.
00:05:30Antonio Brown's mother and father, they separated as he was growing up.
00:05:35His father was chasing his dream of becoming a professional football player.
00:05:40I grew up seeing my dad be a good football player.
00:05:43He was like the greatest player in the AFL over Kurt Warner's and I witnessed him.
00:05:49I've been in his games.
00:05:50I was seeing what he was like and why he didn't go to the NFL.
00:05:52You know what I mean?
00:05:53So for me, I was going to do it better.
00:05:55Antonio really looked up to his father.
00:05:58I think that was a big push for him.
00:06:00I was a high school kid who was raised with my mom.
00:06:10My dad was always away.
00:06:12My mom, she got so much stuff going around her.
00:06:15She really couldn't focus on what I needed to do.
00:06:18So I had to become a man early.
00:06:20When you are a product of a broken home, you have a lot of questions about whether people
00:06:27are really there for you.
00:06:29Because of that, you're going to be looking for that in any of the relationships that
00:06:33you have even outside of the home.
00:06:35I remember the first time I met Antonio Brown.
00:06:39I was helping coach our junior varsity team at the time.
00:06:44And Tony walked up and said, Coach, I'm here to play football at Miami Northern Senior High.
00:06:51I said, you came in the middle of the season.
00:06:54What do you think?
00:06:55We're supposed to just drop everything and put you in?
00:06:57And I don't think he liked that.
00:07:00He didn't like the fact that I wasn't like, yo, come on.
00:07:03Let's go.
00:07:04Let's go play right now.
00:07:06So he didn't come back until the following year.
00:07:10But when he came back, he took off.
00:07:18He wasn't the biggest guy in the world.
00:07:20He was slim.
00:07:21So an assistant coach by the name of James Upton gave him a nickname Boney Tony.
00:07:28Ken started calling him Boney Tony.
00:07:30He had a little dance that he used to do to it.
00:07:34Tony's size played a big part of his football career.
00:07:38He wanted to let you know, hey, I don't care how big or how small I am.
00:07:43I'm tougher than you.
00:07:44I'm rougher than you.
00:07:45And you're not going to stop me from doing what I need to do on this field.
00:07:50His drive was what stuck out an awful lot.
00:07:53Even from when we had to punish him for certain things.
00:07:59You know, we were running him up and down the entire field.
00:08:04And it got to the point where Tony said, Coach, y'all can run me.
00:08:09But guess what?
00:08:10I don't care.
00:08:11I'm going to continue to run.
00:08:13And then he said, you want to know why?
00:08:15Because I'm a monster.
00:08:20As Tony began to get a little bit older,
00:08:23it was him against the world.
00:08:27His mom remarried.
00:08:28And now you have a new father who's not your father in the home.
00:08:32There's friction there.
00:08:34You're feeling isolated because, you know,
00:08:36your adulation from your mom is being split with someone else.
00:08:40There was times where I dropped him off to his mom's house.
00:08:43And then there was times when I dropped him off to his grandmother's house.
00:08:46Sometimes he would go home with one of the players.
00:08:50That was pretty much his way of life.
00:08:54And at a young age, it'll harden you.
00:08:59After 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,
00:09:12he had to somewhat be pushed aside.
00:09:14As he was waiting to get a decision from those other schools,
00:09:18he found out they had open tryouts at FIU.
00:09:22And 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.
00:09:35The dorm supervisor had some words with Antonio and another young man.
00:09:41And then Tony and them left.
00:09:43As they were walking across the campus,
00:09:46campus police approached him.
00:09:49I guess it got kind of loud.
00:09:51The other young man that was with Tony pushed the officer away.
00:09:55And Tony's instinct was to run.
00:09:58That started a chase throughout the school.
00:10:01Vice obtained campus police records from this 2007 incident,
00:10:06which showed that 19-year-old Antonio Brown and a teammate were involved in a physical incident with officers.
00:10:13Witnesses stated that Brown fled police and football staffers twice,
00:10:17even removing his clothing to disguise his appearance.
00:10:20A place like Liberty City will ingrain you with ways of thinking and experiences
00:10:26that you can carry for the rest of your life.
00:10:28A lot of people look at those of us from these neighborhoods and say,
00:10:31why are they doing these things?
00:10:33Why would you run from the police?
00:10:34That doesn't make any sense.
00:10:36Well, it makes all the sense in the world if you're from that environment.
00:10:41Finally, I guess they were obtained and then I was called.
00:10:46I spoke to the campus police.
00:10:48He said, Coach, 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,
00:10:57because we all got adversity.
00:10:58Life's not perfect.
00:11:00You know what I mean?
00:11:01I done been through so much.
00:11:02But, you know, you've got to keep it positive on your name
00:11:05and don't put no scrutiny and just let you be great.
00:11:07His thing was, Coach, I still want to go to school.
00:11:10I know it's a bad situation, but I want to go to school.
00:11:13Can you please help me?
00:11:15And it just so happens I had a buddy that I grew up with.
00:11:21And at that particular time, he was coaching at Central Michigan University.
00:11:26Me and Coach Brooks played high school football together.
00:11:32So there was an intimacy among us there, and he knew it would be the right fit for Antonio.
00:11:38He said, hey, you get him up here by this date, he can start working out with the team,
00:11:44and we can give him a spot as a preferred walk-on.
00:11:46Friends and family put him on a plane.
00:11:51We got him situated, you know, got him in the dorms.
00:11:54I think that when you come from a tough environment, economic environment,
00:11:59it may seem like you don't have a lot to lose.
00:12:01You actually do.
00:12:03Because this is all you got.
00:12:05So anytime you meet an athlete, including Antonio Brown,
00:12:09when it comes to trust, they're entrusting you with their lives.
00:12:13So they're not going to hand that over very easily.
00:12:15You got to prove yourself to them.
00:12:17And once they earn their trust, then they'll start to begin to trust you
00:12:22because they know you're the one that's given them an opportunity
00:12:26to get out of the situation that they're in.
00:12:29Central Michigan is also a place that's in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
00:12:34There's no mountains there, and there's nothing pleasant about it.
00:12:37There's not a lot of distractions.
00:12:38Let's just say that.
00:12:40So I benefited him.
00:12:41Showing up at Central Michigan as a walk-on,
00:12:44knowing he has three weeks to get a scholarship,
00:12:47and now you're in survival mode.
00:12:49And if you don't do this, you're back in the streets of, you know, Miami.
00:12:52He called me one day, and he said,
00:12:54Coach, his voice started cracking a little bit,
00:12:57and he said, I've done exactly what y'all asked me to do up here,
00:13:01and they're going to give me a scholarship.
00:13:03For me, you know, going to college was a time that changed my life.
00:13:07That was the best thing that happened because I was able to leave Miami.
00:13:11I went to Central Michigan,
00:13:13and the rest was history.
00:13:15Now the Chippewas on the return,
00:13:19and this is Antonio Brown.
00:13:22When I started working with Antonio Brown at Central Michigan,
00:13:26whether it was with him specifically with special teams and punt returning,
00:13:30his willingness to win and succeed and put his name out there was paramount.
00:13:37It meant the world to him.
00:13:39Tony jumped on the scene as a freshman his sophomore year, his junior year.
00:13:43He just kept getting better and better and better.
00:13:45Oh, what a catch by Antonio Brown!
00:13:49He brought a flavor from Miami-Dade County up to the Midwest
00:13:53where that kind of bravado, persona, energy is a little different.
00:13:59He was very fast, very quick.
00:14:01Antonio Brown will go the distance!
00:14:04Touchdown, Central Michigan!
00:14:06Let me tell you something, you're scoring a bunch of touchdowns.
00:14:08You make a lot of friends in a hurry.
00:14:10The stage that he was on at Central Michigan,
00:14:12I think was perfect for him.
00:14:14They had a very good team.
00:14:15They were successful, big time,
00:14:18with Tony and the pieces that they had already had there.
00:14:20He always did above and beyond.
00:14:23During practices at 6 o'clock in the morning he was in,
00:14:27and toward the end of practice, as things finished,
00:14:29he'd stay afterwards and run routes and catch balls from the quarterback.
00:14:34I was not Antonio Brown's position coach,
00:14:37but 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.
00:14:47He didn't like anybody talking down to him.
00:14:49You know, speak to me, don't speak at me.
00:14:52If he would ruffle around the edges with him,
00:14:54he was going to let you know about it.
00:14:56If he showed up with a big smile early in the morning,
00:14:58you already know he's in a great mood.
00:15:00He's there to work.
00:15:02If he showed up with a frown on his face,
00:15:05he was still going to work.
00:15:07I heard one of our coaches say this about Antonio Brown.
00:15:10He says,
00:15:11There's a lot of really good players around here,
00:15:14and I've loved those guys Monday through Friday
00:15:16and hated him on Saturday.
00:15:18But we've had guys like Antonio
00:15:20who could be difficult during the week,
00:15:21but we love him on Saturday.
00:15:23We need more guys like that.
00:15:25People knew all along he was a smart kid.
00:15:28Just had a lot of challenges, you know,
00:15:30and a lot of pain growing up.
00:15:32But that pain can be flipped for energy.
00:15:36Tony was a kid, even in high school.
00:15:39He just needed a shot.
00:15:44So we said if Tony could get a shot after college,
00:15:47he would be all right.
00:15:49I'd see him periodically.
00:15:51It might have been Christmas Eve.
00:15:53We had breakfast at a Denny's,
00:15:56and he couldn't stress enough that he wanted to get drafted.
00:16:00When you're doing your scouting on a player to draft the player,
00:16:08you're going to go into his background,
00:16:10figure out what happened at Central Michigan,
00:16:12talk to coaches like a Paul Valero.
00:16:14The process of being drafted into the NFL,
00:16:17it's just you're under a microscope.
00:16:19There's the evaluation of you physically.
00:16:22Once you get past that, now it's the character side,
00:16:26habits, work ethic.
00:16:28Are you mentally strong?
00:16:30Are you competitive?
00:16:31Because at the end of the day,
00:16:32you're signing someone to millions of dollars,
00:16:34and they have to perform for you.
00:16:37When you're evaluating a player going into the NFL,
00:16:39people take into consideration
00:16:42that you're playing in the Mid-American Conference.
00:16:44It's no knock on Central Michigan,
00:16:46but it's not one of the big premiere conferences.
00:16:49Smaller player, small school.
00:16:52You know, he wasn't the normal five-star player
00:16:54that you see sign with an SEC school
00:16:56and play on a national stage.
00:16:58He kind of came up, really,
00:17:00through the back door of college football,
00:17:02so there wasn't a lot of credibility
00:17:05he had coming into the draft.
00:17:07So in the NFL draft,
00:17:11now there's seven rounds.
00:17:13I actually watched every round
00:17:18to see if he was going to get picked up,
00:17:20and it just so happened,
00:17:22he got picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:17:28Somebody came up and told me,
00:17:29hey, the Steelers just picked up Antonio six rounds.
00:17:31I said, really?
00:17:32I was just happy for him.
00:17:33A sixth-round pick often
00:17:35will not make the roster of a team.
00:17:37If you get lucky,
00:17:38you find an Antonio Brown
00:17:41and you keep him at bay in the NFL.
00:17:44It's not about where you get drafted.
00:17:46There's plenty of guys that get drafted early
00:17:48and can't play dead in Western.
00:17:54The Steelers was a good environment for them.
00:17:56Close camp, household name, family-oriented.
00:18:00Great organization,
00:18:01you know, with a great head coach,
00:18:03Coach Tomlin,
00:18:04and they got a culture there
00:18:05of looking after guys.
00:18:07I think Tomlin posed as a father figure to him,
00:18:11you know,
00:18:12somewhat of what he got
00:18:13when he was in high school.
00:18:15When he was at Central Michigan,
00:18:17he had Coach Valero there
00:18:19to make sure he was going to see things through.
00:18:22Mike Tomlin believes in developing the person,
00:18:24not just the player.
00:18:25And so, you know,
00:18:26for a guy like Antonio Brown
00:18:28who may have needed a little bit of hand-holding,
00:18:30a guy like Mike Tomlin
00:18:31is a good coach for someone like that.
00:18:33I feel like when I went to the Steelers,
00:18:35Mike Tomlin was that father figure for me,
00:18:38like, outside of coach.
00:18:39And he was the guy
00:18:40who always tried to talk to me about things
00:18:42even when I didn't understand him.
00:18:44Once I saw him and talked with him,
00:18:46I knew I would have success.
00:18:48Being part of an organization
00:18:49like the Steelers
00:18:50is being part of a family.
00:18:51Mike Tomlin really preaches that,
00:18:53he embodies that,
00:18:54and he really made sure
00:18:56that the players who come through
00:18:57really do as well.
00:18:59A lot of the locker room culture
00:19:01was really run by the players,
00:19:02a veteran player council.
00:19:04There are a lot of players
00:19:05who've been there for a long time,
00:19:06right?
00:19:07And they're the locker room leaders.
00:19:08They're the ones that the younger players
00:19:09look up to.
00:19:10They model their behavior after
00:19:12if they're doing it right.
00:19:13And Mike Tomlin wanted it that way
00:19:14because he felt like these were adults
00:19:16and not kids.
00:19:17But in the same instance,
00:19:18he really wanted to be there for them
00:19:19and his door was open for them
00:19:20and he would talk to players
00:19:21all the time about their families,
00:19:22about their lives,
00:19:23about the issues they may be going through.
00:19:27When you're drafting a player
00:19:28that late in the draft,
00:19:29you're probably not expecting a whole lot.
00:19:31Maybe he'll make the team and contribute.
00:19:32Nobody really knew
00:19:34that he would become what he did.
00:19:35He just needed a foot in the door
00:19:37and Tony kicked the door in.
00:19:48I mean, life is made of moments.
00:19:50You live for those moments
00:19:51that you dream about.
00:19:52As a kid playing football,
00:19:53you dream about like,
00:19:54yo, I want to win the Super Bowl.
00:19:56You know, I want to lead the NFL
00:19:57in touchdown.
00:19:58For me, those always are my goal.
00:20:00From high school to college,
00:20:01Antonio Brown was searching
00:20:03to carve out his own path
00:20:04and his hard work paid off.
00:20:06Drafted by one of the NFL's
00:20:09premier franchises,
00:20:10Antonio seized his once-in-a-lifetime
00:20:13opportunity and ran with it.
00:20:15When Antonio Brown signed
00:20:16with the Pittsburgh Steelers,
00:20:17late round pick,
00:20:18you're signing a three-year deal
00:20:20around $1.3 million,
00:20:22pretty modest signing bonus
00:20:24of about $70,000 or so.
00:20:26Well, that's not the huge money
00:20:28that a lot of these
00:20:29star interval players
00:20:30are accustomed to,
00:20:31but if you're Antonio Brown,
00:20:32you really worked your way
00:20:33from the bottom
00:20:34into NFL status.
00:20:36That's a great contract.
00:20:37That's huge money
00:20:38for a player coming up.
00:20:39When he first came to Pittsburgh,
00:20:41the Steelers were loaded
00:20:42at wide receiver.
00:20:43They had a lot of star players.
00:20:44Antonio Brown was really perceived
00:20:46as maybe your fourth
00:20:47or fifth wide receiver
00:20:48on the team
00:20:49and then a kickoff punt returner.
00:20:50You know, special teams,
00:20:51that was where his value was.
00:20:53I started covering Antonio
00:20:55when I was working for ESPN.
00:20:57I remember him being very precocious,
00:21:01very personable.
00:21:02He's got a very white smile,
00:21:04so his teeth are blindingly white.
00:21:06I do remember that about him.
00:21:09And, you know,
00:21:09I just remember him
00:21:10bursting on the scene.
00:21:13He quickly made himself known
00:21:15with his performance.
00:21:17By Antonio Brown's second year,
00:21:19he had stamped his mark on the team,
00:21:21and he was becoming a superstar.
00:21:25And then gradually,
00:21:26the more and more he plays,
00:21:28the clearer that he gets
00:21:30that you have one of the best players
00:21:31in the NFL.
00:21:33And then it also becomes clear
00:21:35that much in the tradition
00:21:37of great wide receivers,
00:21:38this guy is a character.
00:21:40Yeah, Antonio Brown was something else.
00:21:44His extroverted personality
00:21:46on the field,
00:21:48dance he would do
00:21:49when he'd catch the ball.
00:21:50He knew that's what people wanted to see,
00:21:53and he gave it to them.
00:21:55Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown,
00:21:57that relationship was perfect
00:21:59for both of them.
00:22:00Ben Roethlisberger saw
00:22:02what was there in Antonio Brown
00:22:03and the playmaking ability he had
00:22:04and would go to him frequently.
00:22:06And I think Antonio Brown
00:22:07really appreciated that.
00:22:08So I think they needed each other,
00:22:10they respected each other,
00:22:11and on the field knew the value
00:22:13that each brought to the other.
00:22:14In 2012, the Steelers signed Antonio Brown
00:22:18to a five-year,
00:22:18$42 million contract.
00:22:21At the time,
00:22:22they were getting ahead of what they saw
00:22:24was a brilliant player
00:22:25who's going to cost a lot more
00:22:27if they waited a year or two.
00:22:29If you're Antonio Brown,
00:22:31I think in many ways,
00:22:32he probably saw it as not just about money,
00:22:34it's confirmation.
00:22:35That chip on his shoulder,
00:22:36I think, was real.
00:22:37His work ethic, I think,
00:22:38was driven from that.
00:22:39He wanted to prove himself.
00:22:41He had this drive to succeed
00:22:42that was unparalleled.
00:22:44A $42 million contract
00:22:46will turn your whole life upside down,
00:22:48in good ways and in bad ways,
00:22:51especially when you come from having nothing.
00:22:55You've got money for the first time in your life,
00:22:57and you're supposed to be able to operate normally.
00:23:00How does that work?
00:23:02The money is fun and big,
00:23:04and so you're spending that,
00:23:05and it gives you a big head
00:23:06because you have so much money.
00:23:08It's like you can't go wrong.
00:23:09You can't overspend on anything, right?
00:23:12And so that obviously has its own entrapments.
00:23:15He was somebody who did live
00:23:17an extravagant lifestyle.
00:23:19The choices that people make
00:23:21who once were poor,
00:23:22a lot of them are predicated
00:23:24on not wanting that feeling of being poor.
00:23:27It feels really bad to pull up to some place
00:23:29and everybody looks at your car
00:23:31because the side is rusted out.
00:23:33So AB just going to roll up in the old-school Rolls Royce
00:23:36with a driver?
00:23:37It feels really bad to go to school
00:23:39and have people make fun of your sneakers
00:23:41because they got holes in them.
00:23:42And so when you get some money,
00:23:44you're going to make sure not only
00:23:45are they not going to make fun of them,
00:23:47but they're going to admire them.
00:23:49And I'm going to feel good about myself.
00:23:52One year he showed up in a helicopter,
00:23:56literally pulled up into like a grass field
00:23:59adjacent to the college,
00:24:01and we're all there waiting on all the players to show up,
00:24:03and then you get word like,
00:24:04hey, Antonio's about to be here,
00:24:06but he's not showing up in this driveway right here.
00:24:08He's going to be a half mile down the way in a field
00:24:10in a black helicopter.
00:24:11You want to make a statement with coming in by helicopter?
00:24:14No, I just want to be on the time to be ready to go.
00:24:18Watching Antonio's career unfold,
00:24:21it was a joy.
00:24:23It was a lot of pride in being able to help him
00:24:25get to where he needed to be.
00:24:28By 2015, Antonio Brown was arguably the best wide receiver
00:24:32in the NFL and on the fast track to the Hall of Fame.
00:24:35In his sixth season in the league,
00:24:37he had a career best 1,834 receiving yards,
00:24:41the fifth most of all time in a single season.
00:24:44He seemed unstoppable until one moment changed everything.
00:24:51One of the wilder games I covered was a playoff game.
00:24:54Steelers are at Cincinnati.
00:24:56It's very close.
00:24:57It's an intense atmosphere.
00:24:58Two teams that absolutely hate each other.
00:25:00The Steelers-Bengals rivalry goes a long way back.
00:25:03The Bengals and the Steelers don't like each other.
00:25:08I love Pittsburgh, but they're not Cincinnati.
00:25:10I still love her despite her team preference.
00:25:13There was so much hype and anticipation
00:25:16because this was by far the NFL's best rivalry at the time.
00:25:20Pretty much in every game they had played,
00:25:23someone got hurt, someone got fined.
00:25:26Everybody knows that this is what has happened in these games
00:25:29between these two teams for over a decade.
00:25:32Yeah.
00:25:33So, in Cincinnati, Steelers are down.
00:25:38Final minute, they have the ball.
00:25:40You see Antonio Brown go over the middle,
00:25:43and it's like slow motion.
00:25:44You see him about to go for the ball.
00:25:47Ben Roethlisberger delivers it.
00:25:50And then Vontaze Burfik, he just came in that helmet.
00:25:59And Antonio, when he got hit, I mean, his arms just flew backward.
00:26:03It was not a pretty sight.
00:26:05It was a high state game, and that particular hit could happen on any play.
00:26:12And Tony knows, and other receivers know, that can happen.
00:26:18As he got hit, you can see the body go limp, and he was already unconscious.
00:26:25And then also, he hits the back of his head on the turf,
00:26:28which can be kind of a secondary injury process that happens.
00:26:32There were some gasps in the press box.
00:26:37Even though you couldn't really hear the hit, you could feel it.
00:26:41It was sort of soul-stripping, you know?
00:26:44You're dealing with the reality of a late game.
00:26:47It's very close.
00:26:48It's an intense atmosphere.
00:26:51But then there's this human element of, is this player okay?
00:26:54Is he gonna get up?
00:26:55That was my first instinct.
00:26:57He needed to get up.
00:26:58Tony was always one to get up.
00:27:00We considered him a rubber band.
00:27:02You hit him, he's gonna jump back up.
00:27:05He don't want somebody to be able to say,
00:27:07you know what, I knocked Antonio Brown out of the game.
00:27:09He's gonna get back in the game.
00:27:12And I think he lives his life that way as well.
00:27:15Are you out before you even hit the turf?
00:27:17Yeah.
00:27:18Yeah.
00:27:19Oh, boy.
00:27:20Yeah, because he hit me right in the head, right before I hit the turf.
00:27:23Yeah.
00:27:24Memory loss?
00:27:25A little bit.
00:27:26You know, my coach was telling me I was smiling and talking to him like they thought it was regular.
00:27:29But 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.
00:27:36Where Apollo Creed goes down to his eventual death.
00:27:49Just seeing the way his head moved in every direction and thinking about what was going on in his brain.
00:27:58How 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 that Antonio Brown had.
00:28:16The worst part of that concussion after Burfik hit you as well.
00:28:20Yeah.
00:28:21Probably your energy.
00:28:22You know, your balance.
00:28:23You know, when you get a concussion, you're doing the eyes test with the symptoms.
00:28:26Usually make you real dizzy, lightheaded and wanting to sleep a lot.
00:28:31The discussions around concussions.
00:28:33I would say that it really hit a fever pitch around the CBA negotiations in 2010.
00:28:39Players are fighting for their rights.
00:28:40So I remember it being intensified around that time.
00:28:43When Antonio Brown takes a hit like he did a star player with helmet to helmet contact like that.
00:28:48It 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.
00:29:02And it happened to Antonio Brown.
00:29:05A lot of fans and even some of the media do speculate that when Antonio Brown took that hit from Vontaze Perfect that he wasn't quite the same afterwards.
00:29:18After the devastating Vontaze Perfect hit, the legend of Antonio Brown only grew.
00:29:24And as he continued to put up Hall of Fame numbers, he was still searching for something beyond the end zone.
00:29:30The spotlight.
00:29:31The idea of self-branding was becoming really big with football players.
00:29:34Antonio Brown believed, hey, I know I'm not going to last forever in the league.
00:29:37No one does.
00:29:38And I'm seeing this big opportunity here and I'm going to take it.
00:29:41He was doing commercials.
00:29:44When I think about Antonio Brown's game, he got it all on lock.
00:29:48Haircut.
00:29:49Check.
00:29:50Pushing his persona and things of that nature.
00:29:52In his prime, he had it going from the marketing standpoint.
00:29:54I mean, he had Pepsi.
00:29:56Antonio, what have you got in mind?
00:29:58Bit of a throwback.
00:29:59Pizza Hut.
00:30:00A.B., is this it?
00:30:03He had a great smile, so he marketed that.
00:30:05I mean, he was on top of the world.
00:30:07When you're hot, man, you got to go get it.
00:30:09And when there's money to be got, you don't know how long it's going to last.
00:30:12So you got to keep that momentum going.
00:30:14In the NFL, if you're not a marquee quarterback, it's hard to get endorsements.
00:30:18It is not easy to get big money.
00:30:20Peyton Manning was like in every other commercial.
00:30:23That's okay, Wendy.
00:30:24That was a good carry.
00:30:25You're still the man.
00:30:26You're the man.
00:30:27You know, maybe Aaron Rodgers.
00:30:28It's the perfect thing for game time with the guys.
00:30:31You'd see Ben Roethlisberger pop up.
00:30:33I want to head back inside.
00:30:35But it was rare to see a black NFL player.
00:30:39And it seemed that the NFL was embracing that, given A.B.'s endorsement deals and the Madden cover.
00:30:46Being on the cover of Madden football is an indication that you have reached upper echelons of stardom.
00:30:56The idea that he was on there with no helmet, the part that makes that interesting is not simply that it allows for his face to be seen,
00:31:03but it is also a reflection of the fact that he has been known as the sort of guy who would be there without his helmet on.
00:31:10Look at me right now, and that is a reflection of who the man was.
00:31:14When I talked to A.B. about being on the cover of Madden, he talked a lot about wanting to inspire people.
00:31:19His work ethic is incredible, and that has been an inspiration to a lot of young people, a lot of adults.
00:31:25All this, and he would be like, Coach, I'm doing this just so I can feed my family, so I can make sure we are good to go forever.
00:31:36The problem is that when you're at that stage, you live in a glass bowl, everybody sees you.
00:31:42You're not invincible, and you're not invisible, and you can't afford to make mistakes.
00:31:48And the more that he realized that he's special in the league and that he, you know, had arrived, it did go from, you know, Antonio Brown to the A.B. 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 A.B. show minute to minute, and I feel like because of that, there were times that he struggled to go back to Antonio Brown.
00:32:23I think his image was very important to him because he had done something incredible,
00:32:28and he was trying to balance these impulses that he had for attention and for being his own person and doing his own thing to going with the team and being part of the squad.
00:32:39Attention is a drug, and everybody's on it.
00:32:43The Steelers' culture is something that is beloved by players who have gone through that system and believed in that culture
00:32:50and believed that the culture is about the team first and players second.
00:32:55As the veterans slowly left the team, retired, that truly changed that leadership in the Steelers' locker room.
00:33:01And I think when you have a guy like Antonio Brown who really thrived on being led, I think to keep him sort of on the straight and narrow,
00:33:08when those reins sort of get loosened, 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 emails from editors saying,
00:33:23hey, like, Antonio Brown's on Facebook broadcasting live from the locker room.
00:33:29The 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 to be broadcast publicly.
00:33:44And Mike Tomlin had called the Patriots these assholes.
00:33:49That was a private moment for Mike Tomlin.
00:33:51That's like a betrayal, right? That's like a family member giving away your secret online.
00:33:56Antonio Brown decided to go live on Facebook for 17 minutes.
00:33:59Probably not the best idea.
00:34:02That was the first time I started to think about mental health, wondering, like, is that narcissism? Is that bipolar?
00:34:11Like, there was something that was not right.
00:34:14Mike Tomlin came out swinging in his press conference, held Antonio Brown's feet to the fire, held him accountable.
00:34:20That created more negative response to anything he did, I think, from Mike Tomlin.
00:34:25And the reason why is it violated the Steelers' culture.
00:34:28You don't violate that locker room.
00:34:30Antonio Brown knew better. He should have known better.
00:34:33And he did apologize for it later.
00:34:35I was really sorry about that moment. Got a little excited.
00:34:39But the deed was done, right?
00:34:41And I think it really sort of exhibited that mindset that was continually developing with him.
00:34:45You know, I never meant to embarrass an organization to put my teammates feeling a certain way or misrepresent myself.
00:34:52The 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.
00:35:01A $10,000 fine is just, you know, it's something that Antonio Brown goes back to and laughs about.
00:35:06Like, I can't believe I did something so silly.
00:35:08I can't wait until I figure out what I'm going to do next week on social media now.
00:35:11You know, it's like, that's not a deterrent.
00:35:14I'm a good guy with a good heart and got good intention.
00:35:17And it was a mistake. And I moved forward from it.
00:35:20No matter what happens with a player, it's still a production league.
00:35:24Nobody produced on the field like Antonio Brown.
00:35:27The Steelers go on to sign Brown, give him the contract he's been wanting.
00:35:34It was $68 million and $19 million guaranteed.
00:35:38It's really telling that he got a big contract right after that video episode, right?
00:35:42A few weeks later, he's making more money than anyone else.
00:35:45And I think for Antonio Brown, it was just further, further verification, right?
00:35:48That, look, I am bigger than the game and that there's nothing anyone can do.
00:35:52You know what they say, more money, more problems, right?
00:35:55And so now that you've got this big contract, you start interacting with more people.
00:35:59That includes, you know, third-party contractors.
00:36:02That includes, you know, people who are a support staff in your life.
00:36:06It's incredibly hard to deal with that much money when you don't have any background or training or stability or foundation.
00:36:12You haven't been taught anything.
00:36:14The people who are supposed to help you with it may be looking out for you.
00:36:18They may be looking out for themselves. They may be robbing you.
00:36:21It leads to a great deal of distrust of the people who are around them.
00:36:26And any insecurities or any lack of self-esteem that you have is actually going to be exacerbated by these things.
00:36:33Because the money and the prestige and everything that comes around it, it could paper over whatever the problems are, but they're not going to go away.
00:36:40Around 2018, there was just a potpourri of problems that you wouldn't think he'd have to deal with with his level of fame and the money he had.
00:36:50Court records and claims of unpaid bills of people that worked for him that he refused to pay.
00:36:56Reports of behaving badly toward the woman he was with.
00:37:00Videos of him throwing things out of the window.
00:37:03And this went beyond normal, like, he's a character behavior.
00:37:08This 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.
00:37:18They had clearly made the decision that as long as he was responsible in a football sense, which he had been, then they could overlook and ignore everything else.
00:37:27And it started to feel like that was starting to be a little looser and that none of the rest of this could overcome the fact that he was starting to look like he was losing it.
00:37:37There are people who believe that Antonio Brown really wanted to be recognized as the X factor on that team.
00:37:452018, you know, I had like 15 touchdowns, 1200 yards, 100 catches. I think that was my sixth season doing it.
00:37:52And that's when I realized that, you know, people don't really appreciate greatness.
00:37:56And there were times that I remember Antonio Brown felt that Mike Tomlin was prioritizing Ben Roethlisberger.
00:38:06Ben was always going to be the top of the pecking order there. The offense was changing to tailor it more towards Ben's new abilities.
00:38:13That mission was almost diametrically opposed to getting Antonio Brown the looks that he wanted to get.
00:38:19That was not something that I think he felt good about.
00:38:21I think Ben Roethlisberger resented it because I think Ben Roethlisberger probably felt like I helped make him.
00:38:27Like 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.
00:38:32His source of feeling good is through achievements, accomplishments and adulation.
00:38:41When you have a conflict with that, then it breaks that down and then it breaks down trust.
00:38:47It breaks down the bond. And those are things I really think that he thrives off and needs.
00:38:56Today has Steelers Nation on edge after responding to a former Steelers employee on Twitter with Trade Me.
00:39:03Eventually, Steelers were starting to reach a boiling point with Antonio Brown.
00:39:08He missed a walk through. There was an incident in a practice where he and Ben Roethlisberger were at odds.
00:39:14And then Mike Tomlin's like, hey, just don't show up for Sunday. You know, we're going to roll without you.
00:39:19When he benched Antonio Brown, everyone was really surprised. And I think there was a little bit of a, wow, Tomlin finally did it.
00:39:27Like Tomlin really did it. It was like, wow, this A must have really gotten bad.
00:39:32And B, maybe like Tomlin, you know, had had enough.
00:39:36Antonio Brown gets benched in the game against the Bengals and comes onto the field briefly with a fur coat on.
00:39:42The 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.
00:39:51That is a man that is making a point that he's the guy in the fur coat and you guys are not.
00:39:56Matt told us a lot about his future there with the Steelers.
00:39:59It was a big middle finger to everybody, clearly.
00:40:02And 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.
00:40:07I think he probably felt like he had bigger opportunities elsewhere, too.
00:40:11I feel like when I went to the Steelers, Mike Tomlin was, man, that dude was like my pops, to be honest.
00:40:18So I'm always, you feel me, indebted to Mike Tomlin.
00:40:21Like, he was one of those guys that stood on the foxhole for me.
00:40:25Always had my back. Always believed in me.
00:40:32You 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?
00:40:44Like, no.
00:40:45It's his job to put out the best product on the field.
00:40:48It'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 AB to Mr. Businesses Boomin' to Tony Totap.
00:41:10But by 2019, his relationship with the Steelers had completely fractured, and he was demanding to be called a new name.
00:41:17Call me, Mr. Big Chef. Big Chef for now.
00:41:20And what once seemed like a match made in heaven, was now going through a very nasty and very public breakup.
00:41:27If your team got guaranteed money, they want to get to know me and work with me, tell them call me.
00:41:33There was just so much chaos, you know, in the headlines. The engagement was off the roof that year.
00:41:40A meltdown has taken place before our very eyes.
00:41:43Antonio Brown is done with the Steelers, and he is burning down every possible bridge he can on his exit out.
00:41:50The fact that the Steelers had just extended Antonio Brown and then had to trade him illustrates how desperate they were to move on.
00:42:00They 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.
00:42:11That's how much they wanted to get rid of him.
00:42:14Antonio Brown gets his wish.
00:42:17The Steelers ship A.B. off to the Raiders, and the three-year deal worth $50 million makes him the NFL's highest paid receiver and sends ripples around the league.
00:42:27When 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.
00:42:35Mike 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.
00:42:45And it didn't.
00:42:48He did not play a single game for the Raiders.
00:42:53It's just nothing but drama the entire time. I mean, he had frostbite on his feet.
00:42:58A lot of the drama started off in training camp with him burning his feet in the cryotherapy chamber.
00:43:05His feet just ballooned. It looked like he had 15 bunions on his big toe.
00:43:12I've never heard of a player burning their feet in a cryotherapy chamber.
00:43:18And it was just like, it was so crazy because of all things to happen. It's like, what? He can't practice because of what?
00:43:24Antonio Brown is a workhorse, and he does really care about his regiment and taking care of his body.
00:43:30So 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.
00:43:44And 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.
00:43:52All right. Well, after days of controversy, Oakland Raiders wide receiver Antonio Brown will not 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 to avoid wearing the new helmet, including painting his old helmet to try to make it look like the new helmet.
00:44:09And after a point, it started to feel like self-sabotage.
00:44:12I just think that at that time, Antonio Brown was in full AB mode, and it was really more about he wasn't going to be told something about what he preferred.
00:44:22You know, and it's unfortunate because he really needed a good start with the Raiders.
00:44:28Training camp is a very rapid, very crucial aspect of an NFL season.
00:44:34It's when everyone's coalescing and 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 made a mistake.
00:44:47And then people saw his behavior in Oakland and felt, oh, maybe not.
00:44:52You know, maybe 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.
00:45:02Mike Tomlin kept things behind closed doors, especially if you're trying to make a trade.
00:45:07It's not up to the Steelers to put all that out there to the Raiders as well.
00:45:10It's up to them to do their homework.
00:45:12But also, you 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.
00:45:23Raiders general manager Mike Mayock told reporters he felt they now exhausted their options 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.
00:45:39And then once 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 in a shouting match with the GM of the Raiders, whom he called a cracker.
00:45:55And 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 publicizes it, we realized, wow, you know, that's uncouth.
00:46:21Let 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.
00:46:35Well, what were the Raiders gonna do at that point? I mean, they had a season to start.
00:46:39At some point, you just have to say f*** 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 you have the star power of Antonio Brown and John Gruden in the same place.
00:46:54Like, 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.
00:47:02We get this video once he's finally released by the Raiders in the preseason.
00:47:08The Raiders free!
00:47:10I don't want to leave!
00:47:14Grandma, they free me!
00:47:17They free me, Grandma!
00:47:19I honestly feel like that drama carried over because he was still processing not being a stealer.
00:47:27And 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,
00:47:37you're still in the process of processing that.
00:47:41And I think that that is an ongoing theme with Antonio Brown and A.B., this A.B. character that he also developed.
00:47:50I 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 $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 gonna come here, he's gonna 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 of your career?
00:48:17He's got attitude problems, everyone's gonna say that, but I mean, we got Belichick.
00:48:21I think to a lot of observers, the Patriots were actually the perfect place for Antonio Brown.
00:48:27The Patriots were already the villain of the NFL.
00:48:30If you're not a Patriots fan, you 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 who didn't fit in at other programs and get them in line in New England.
00:48:50If you care about football and you love winning games and you're willing to be selfless, you can be successful here and we'll forget about the things you did in the past.
00:48:57How 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?
00:49:05Talent trumps trouble. That's how the NFL rolls. Like, it always has. I think it always will.
00:49:12None of it really matters what people think or what they say. What matters is us as teammates working hard to get it right.
00:49:19I'm sure Tom Brady was kind of salivating, thinking like, what can I do with this dude?
00:49:26What's the reaction across the NFL since signed?
00:49:29Oh shit, they're gonna win the Super Bowl again.
00:49:33Just 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 three different times.
00:49:57Brittany Taylor is a former college classmate and a gymnast at Central Michigan University.
00:50:02They become Bible study partners together during their athletic careers.
00:50:07Brittany transfers to LSU.
00:50:09Antonio Brown goes on to the NFL and becomes an all-pro superstar wide receiver.
00:50:14They keep up that friendship from a distance.
00:50:17She ends up being a gymnastics coach as well as a physical trainer.
00:50:21Antonio Brown allegedly rekindles the friendship and introduces a business partnership
00:50:27where he hires Brittany Taylor to be a trainer to work on his lower extremities.
00:50:32And from there, the relationship is alleged to have turned sexual by Brown.
00:50:38She accuses Antonio Brown of masturbating and ejaculating on her back while she was not paying attention.
00:50:44And then later of sexual assault, of rape.
00:50:47The 2018 incident, as alleged, the most serious forcible rape, refusal to stop even though she was screaming and yelling for him to stop.
00:50:56That is the accusation.
00:50:57And obviously, any time that a player of Antonio Brown's caliber is mentioned in a lawsuit, it's going to get attention.
00:51:07Brown denies the allegations, posting this video on social media.
00:51:10The devil is 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 relationship.
00:51:19And throughout, Brittany Taylor and her mother are seeking forms of investment in the business.
00:51:26Another factor is that in the first instance, when he was alleged to have ejaculated on her back,
00:51:32after he apologizes, she comes back and returns to his employee.
00:51:37Days 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 employer-employee barrier and made it sexual.
00:51:58Allegedly, Antonio Brown offers to hire this young woman to paint a mural of him in his own home.
00:52:04The woman agrees and very quickly things go off the rails.
00:52:08She spends the first day painting this mural without incident.
00:52:12She 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 behind her naked with just a hand towel over his penis.
00:52:24And when she ignored him and turned him down, she was fired.
00:52:31She chose to be anonymous in our story.
00:52:34We protected her anonymity out of fear of retaliation and that fear ended up being validated.
00:52:39After our story published, which came on the heels of the sexual assault lawsuit against Antonio Brown,
00:52:45Antonio Brown allegedly added her to a group text with him and several of his associates, including his personal lawyer,
00:52:52took screenshots of her Instagram page and shared photos of her kids with this group of people, accused her of being broke and seeking money and being a bad mother.
00:53:04And she ended up taking screenshots, taking it to her lawyer.
00:53:08Her lawyer brought it to the NFL.
00:53:11Of 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.
00:53:31And for the Patriots, that was the last straw.
00:53:33All right, the New England Patriots had just released Antonio Brown following sexual assault accusations against him.
00:53:44You know, at that point, he was such a distraction and just such a mess.
00:53:50I mean, everything about Antonio Brown has been almost like a Charlie Sheen-esque debacle.
00:53:56You have to really be a problem to be that talented and figure out a way to get off of three NFL teams in a span of six months.
00:54:06I think the Patriots would have kept them even beyond the sexual assault accusation, even beyond this new accusation of, you know, mistreating this woman and his employee.
00:54:18But once he texts her and this group of people with screenshots of her kid, I just thought, oh, well, he's done.
00:54:27You know, he may not work in the NFL ever again.
00:54:29I think when Antonio Brown called out Ben Roethlisberger and Robert Kraft for their own transgressions.
00:54:36He had a series of tweets, as I mentioned, some of them that have since been deleted.
00:54:40He'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
00:54:47had been treated.
00:54:48I had a lot of mixed feelings about it because here we have Brown out there being accused.
00:54:54But then he he does have a point that those two got shoved under the rug.
00:55:00Basically, the Kraft masseuse incident and then Ben Roethlisberger, most notably, two very documented incidents in 2008 and 2010.
00:55:11And then the NFL reducing his punishment from six games to four games for good behavior.
00:55:16Like he literally got the same as Tom Brady did for Deflategate.
00:55:20When Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault, women were not really being believed.
00:55:26This is before Me Too.
00:55:28We did not recognize there was a widespread culture of powerful men victimizing women, raping women.
00:55:37That context did not yet exist.
00:55:40You add on top of that, this is a white Super Bowl winning heroic quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:55:47And 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.
00:55:58Without the game of football that had grounded him for years, Antonio's life was now in complete disarray.
00:56:10She's here to take the kids to school, not no vehicle.
00:56:13This bitch is broke.
00:56:14She don't drive billies.
00:56:15Chelsea Kyrus is the mother of four of Antonio Brown's children.
00:56:18Look at her.
00:56:19She's a lost cause.
00:56:20Look at her.
00:56:21Now 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.
00:56:29We've seen celebrity meltdowns before.
00:56:32I think Antonio Brown is unique in that he filmed it all himself.
00:56:36She evicted.
00:56:37She shouldn't be here.
00:56:38You guys should know that.
00:56:39He's filming himself screaming out on his front lawn with a bag of penis-shaped candy.
00:56:45It's very hard to relate with a lot of that.
00:56:48It's the bag of dicks.
00:56:51Hey, Charles, you got the bag of dicks.
00:56:53Fish head.
00:56:54Fish head.
00:56:55It was bad.
00:56:56I mean, the 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.
00:57:07When A.B. wasn't playing football, he was having a hard time, and a lot of stuff started bubbling up.
00:57:11Clearly, it was building over time, and everything started to just avalanche on top of him.
00:57:23January 2020.
00:57:25As Antonio's erratic behavior continued to escalate, it was enough to push one longtime confidant over the edge.
00:57:32Drew Rosenhaus is this NFL super agent, and he stuck with Antonio Brown through Pittsburgh, through Oakland, through New England, through the sexual assault accusations.
00:57:44Drew Rosenhaus to then throw his hands up and say, I'm done, is, I think that's a huge turning point for Antonio Brown.
00:57:51Because at that point, it's hard to find anybody who's in his corner.
00:57:55Broward County Regional Communications, may I help you?
00:58:01The guy is high. He smoked. He threatened me. He is trying to bite. He throw stones in my truck.
00:58:08I need a policeman. I need to make a report.
00:58:10Antonio Brown was having some items moved from California to his home in Florida.
00:58:16And 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.
00:58:39The moving truck case, the charges were assault, burglary, and criminal mischief.
00:58:44Antonio Brown first pleaded not guilty and then later pleaded no contest and was sentenced to a term of probation of two years.
00:58:56Antonio Brown's string of troublesome incidents led NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to address his situation publicly.
00:59:04Goodell prioritized Antonio Brown's well-being and talked about resources available to all players through the league and the NFL Players Association.
00:59:13Roger Goodell talking about the mental health resources being offered to Antonio Brown is unique in that it's sort of an acknowledgment that there may be a mental health issue there.
00:59:25Whether it's some sort of mental illness that is either undiagnosed or hasn't been disclosed or some sort of physical condition.
00:59:33I mean, many speculated that concussions played a role.
00:59:36He 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.
00:59:40His head got up after this.
00:59:42Concussions in football had simply been taken as a thing that would happen.
00:59:47It is at the beginning of the 2010s that the league largely under the threat of litigation from a lot of places decided that they were going to do something about cutting down on the number of head injuries.
00:59:59And from there, fans kind of took suit.
01:00:02Also, it came to understand that this is a game that is going to have to change and they're looking out for head injuries is going to be an issue.
01:00:08Not a hot take. He never recovered from 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.
01:00:21All they know is that if you get hit in the head, there's a chance that you have suffered a concussion.
01:00:27A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury that heals itself usually around one month on the high end, but most people resolve within one to two weeks.
01:00:36But what can happen is people can continue to have symptoms beyond that one month time period.
01:00:42Studies have shown the duration being up to a year to three years.
01:00:46Also, any anxiety, depression, any behavioral issues that you go into a concussion with can potentially be significantly exacerbated by a concussion.
01:00:56You know, whether it's schizophrenics that have concussions that now their hallucinations are a lot worse, as well as bipolar disorder.
01:01:03So certainly someone having a concussion and the behavioral issues getting worse afterwards wouldn't be something that's very surprising to us.
01:01:10Then we began to learn more and more and we find out about something called CTE.
01:01:16CTE is chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It's a kind of dementia that ends up developing.
01:01:23And one of the primary risk factors for chronic traumatic encephalopathy is hitting your head over and over and over again.
01:01:30So repetitive head injuries.
01:01:32That then became a catch all term for just about any strange behavior that you witnessed from a football player was then blamed on CTE without a sophisticated knowledge of what happened.
01:01:42And I think CTE is a completely different animal because it involves hitting your head.
01:01:46It can involve concussions, but likely involves more sub concussive head injuries.
01:01:50And there's this lull where you don't have any symptoms and maybe you feel okay.
01:01:55And then you begin to have symptoms several years later.
01:01:58Behavioral issues are one of the first presenting signs of CTE.
01:02:02Impulse control, angry outbursts, significant irritability are three primary symptoms that we tend to see.
01:02:09It's impossible to diagnose while they're alive.
01:02:12The 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?
01:02:26And 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.
01:02:37But then also you have the CTE thing lingering, right?
01:02:41Which one of the presenting symptoms is mental illness.
01:02:46When Antonio Brown got hit in the head by Vontaze Burfik, correct or not, he became the face of CTE in the NFL.
01:02:54The face of a disease that can only be diagnosed in dead people.
01:02:58It's obvious Antonio Brown has issues, but all those issues, CTE or all those issues, because he's a jerk.
01:03:05There's questions about Antonio Brown, his behavior, you know, whether his behavior is related to CTE or not.
01:03:10It's hard for me to pin everything that happened from a behavioral standpoint on this one concussion that he had.
01:03:17I can't say that. There's like, there's so many other factors.
01:03:21We all want a simple explanation for things in life, right?
01:03:24Sometimes isn't one simple, pure explanation for things.
01:03:27With 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.
01:03:36Especially in this day and age where you've got all sorts of, can I curse?
01:03:41Yes.
01:03:42You've got all sorts of shit on social media that's telling people that, hey, you know,
01:03:47AB, you had that one concussion in that game against the Bengals, that's when you had CTE, right?
01:03:54Before 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.
01:04:05An 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?
01:04:16Obviously, as a reporter, I feel like one of the things that I always try to achieve is getting big exclusives and big interviews.
01:04:23And 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 off season.
01:04:34I'm just like, look, AB, you know, would obviously love for you to do this if you could.
01:04:38And classic AB, you know, he didn't give me the answer right then and there.
01:04:42So later in the week, I'm covering the Super Bowl and I was told that I was clear from this live shot.
01:04:48And the next day, I'm showing up for work again to do stuff with SportsCenter.
01:04:53I think word had got back that I hadn't done this live shot.
01:04:57And someone was saying that I wasn't excused.
01:05:00And of course, I find out that I was in big trouble.
01:05:04And, you know, the SportsCenter people were going to take me off SportsCenter during Super Bowl, which was a huge deal.
01:05:10And I knew as a result of that, that my career was in trouble at ESPN.
01:05:15It was a big deal, big deal.
01:05:18And I was devastated.
01:05:20And on my way, leaving the 49ers Hotel, I get a phone call out of nowhere.
01:05:27And it was Antonio Brown.
01:05:30I just burst into tears on the phone.
01:05:33Antonio Brown's like, what's going on?
01:05:36What's happening?
01:05:37What happened?
01:05:38What did they do to you?
01:05:39I'm repeating the story.
01:05:40I think it's over and all this other stuff.
01:05:42And he was like, oh, no, no, no.
01:05:43We're going to give you this interview.
01:05:45We are going to give you this interview.
01:05:47We all came into his personal gym.
01:05:50We waited for hours for Antonio Brown to show up in that parking lot.
01:05:53And, you know, I'm sitting with producers.
01:05:55And they keep asking me, is AB going to show up?
01:05:57Is AB going to show up?
01:05:58Boy, 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.
01:06:09For everything people say about AB, I knew he was going to keep his word.
01:06:14Because I knew that the interaction with him and I was authentic.
01:06:18He 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, vroom, vrooming through the parking lot.
01:06:26I think it was like midnight or 1 a.m.
01:06:29And Antonio Brown kept his word.
01:06:31First of all, Antonio, thank you.
01:06:33Thank you for sitting down with us.
01:06:34We appreciate it.
01:06:35I've always known that there's a caring side to Antonio Brown.
01:06:39Players don't have to do one-on-ones even in the locker room.
01:06:42And they do that because that's their affirmation of you as a reporter, the trust that they have in you.
01:06:47And they're showing that they care also about your career.
01:06:50Can 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?
01:07:00Having the game taken away from me that many days been a little frustrated emotionally, but I think I just miss playing.
01:07:08My mindset with him in that interview was really to try to get to the essence of why he felt this was happening.
01:07:17We all react emotionally sometimes when things happen, but people don't really know what led up to an emotional reaction.
01:07:26But also trying to see what he was willing to put on tape as far as what he was also sorry for.
01:07:34And do you feel like you owe anybody in the NFL an apology?
01:07:38I think I owe the whole NFL apology and my past behavior.
01:07:43You know, I think I could have done a lot of things better.
01:07:47I mean, I do think obviously that he knows that there are some behaviors that need to be rolled back.
01:07:53So 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.
01:08:03And just real quick, just because you mentioned your mental health, do you have any concerns of having CTE at all?
01:08:11I just got a whole lot of money. That's it.
01:08:14I 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.
01:08:30But 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 that I think he's for sure a tune enough to recognize.
01:08:46I just don't think he was ready to attribute it to a big notorious hit.
01:08:52You don't typically have players as good as Antonio Brown who become available in the middle of an NFL season. Like that is an uncommon thing.
01:08:59And Tom Brady still really likes Antonio Brown and wants to play with him on his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
01:09:09He follows Tom Brady to Tampa Bay and he gets one last shot at resurrecting his career.
01:09:22What 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.
01:09:31He gets the second and third and fourth chance with all sorts of people and organizations.
01:09:37And I think that's part of his charm and his ability to convince people.
01:09:41So 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 that stuff going on,
01:09:51he 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,
01:10:06Antonio Brown finally got what he had been searching for, a Super Bowl ring.
01:10:11I love Tampa.
01:10:12Tampa's a beautiful city.
01:10:13We won the Super Bowl, first team ever in their own city to win a Super Bowl.
01:10:17Not only was it a redemption for him to win a Super Bowl with Tom Brady,
01:10:21but it was a restoration from all of the things that people were saying about him,
01:10:26what they felt about him, the negative headlines that were getting attached to his name.
01:10:31Let's go! 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.
01:10:43I 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.
01:11:06He also had become the most unreliable narrator of all time.
01:11:09And few things can tear asunder the relationship between a football player and a team,
01:11:13like 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,
01:11:20they were fairly confident about their position.
01:11:22But 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 times.
01:11:35And the expectation is if you at all can play, you will play.
01:11:39And then we had the whole saga in game.
01:11:43You just saw him upset. You saw teammates trying to calm him down.
01:11:47He ultimately left the field without his jersey.
01:11:51Brown took off his jersey, shoulder pads, and undershirt midway through the third quarter of the game
01:11:59before jogging off the field for good.
01:12:02Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians telling reporters after the game,
01:12:06quote, he is no longer a buck.
01:12:08It was horrific what he did walking off the field in that last game.
01:12:13I was like, he's not getting in the Hall of Fame to do that.
01:12:18That's just a slap in the face to everything the NFL stands for.
01:12:26And it ends up being this he said, she said.
01:12:33Antonio ends up accusing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of essentially pressuring him into playing while injured.
01:12:39And at this point in Antonio Brown's very public personal life,
01:12:44no 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,
01:12:50Antonio Brown sat down for an exclusive interview with Nate Burleson on CBS Mornings.
01:12:56In 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 that go to war for you.
01:13:04Right.
01:13:05And like here in the midst of the battle, you telling me get the hell out of here like I'm done.
01:13:14Antonio Brown's life after the NFL has been complex.
01:13:26This is a guy who, after making seven Pro Bowls in a nine year stretch,
01:13:31retires and supposedly works for Kanye West's company, Donda, as the head of Donda Sports.
01:13:38How did you link up with Kanye?
01:13:40Man, he was looking for me right when I walked off the field.
01:13:42Really?
01:13:43Yeah.
01:13:44He 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 CTESPN.
01:14:06We started to see even more bizarre things.
01:14:08You know, now Antonio Brown is posting about Tom Brady's wife.
01:14:13In early 2024, Antonio Brown filed for bankruptcy.
01:14:18Bankruptcy is a choice, as I have been told by other people who have done this.
01:14:22You choose bankruptcy.
01:14:23It could mean a whole lot of money.
01:14:24It could mean a whole lot of different things, but it doesn't mean things are going well.
01:14:27Things get over here.
01:14:28You know, anybody can sue you, take you for whatever you got.
01:14:30You know, at this point, I don't work.
01:14:32I don't make millions of dollars where it's coming in where I could just force someone that money.
01:14:36So, you know, chapter 11 is about restructuring.
01:14:39In his initial bankruptcy filing, Antonio Brown checked a box indicating that he had less than $50,000 in total assets.
01:14:48I think that would probably come as a surprise to anybody who followed his NFL career.
01:14:54You 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.
01:15:07I can't say that it was expected, but it wasn't unexpected.
01:15:10Life after retirement for all professional athletes is very difficult.
01:15:14There's nothing else that they can do to make 70,000 people cheer for them.
01:15:18If I'm not a wide receiver, then who am I? What is my purpose? What am I here to do?
01:15:22You know, you get a euphoria from playing this game.
01:15:26Even the pain of losses, there's a side of it that feels good, because at least you're part of something.
01:15:32There's nothing where you will have the relationships with the people in your life that you had with the people in that locker room.
01:15:39To leave that and to go to something else is jarring.
01:15:43Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait
01:16:13to Aiden Ross.
01:16:14At Aiden Ross's Brand Risk boxing event,
01:16:16there was a situation that happened outside
01:16:18with Antonio Brown.
01:16:19Antonio Brown lost it, again.
01:16:22Pop, pop, two shots go off.
01:16:24Essentially, there was some sort of dispute
01:16:27where Antonio Brown was seen being involved
01:16:30in some sort of fight with a small group of other people.
01:16:34Back up.
01:16:35It was an event with a lot of influencers.
01:16:43So you had a lot of people who were doing first-person videos.
01:16:49Oh, they're fighting, they're fighting, they're fighting.
01:16:51It's kind of chaotic.
01:16:52There are a lot of bodies, a lot of fists flying.
01:16:57Not over here, not over here, not over here.
01:16:59Ah, I'm doing it!
01:17:02You couldn't see from the footage who started it.
01:17:05Antonio Brown had at one point allegedly
01:17:08grabbed a security guard's gun
01:17:10and fired two shots in the general direction
01:17:14of a former acquaintance.
01:17:17No, it's so much for...
01:17:18Oh, hell.
01:17:19Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
01:17:22Get down, get down, get down.
01:17:25What the ?
01:17:27Shots were fired.
01:17:27At the time, we knew that police had been called.
01:17:31Antonio Brown was briefly detained and questioned.
01:17:36Authorities said that they found two shell casings at the scene.
01:17:40Though, when they detained Antonio Brown,
01:17:43he did not have a weapon on him.
01:17:45But there were no charges filed.
01:17:47And shortly thereafter, Antonio Brown put out a statement
01:17:50clarifying that he had not been arrested
01:17:53and alleging that he had been jumped, essentially.
01:17:56Antonio Brown confirmed that somebody tried to snatch his iced-out chain
01:18:00after the event, which caused that whole situation.
01:18:03But there was a lot that was unclear about what had happened.
01:18:08Florida authorities obtained security footage that showed, allegedly,
01:18:14Antonio Brown's involvement and helped identify the alleged victim,
01:18:18Zul Karib Natambu.
01:18:20Zul Karib Natambu said in an interview with TMZ that he and Antonio Brown had had some beef,
01:18:26and that it was actually Natambu who, after some sort of verbal altercation, was attacked by Brown.
01:18:34If you watched the video, everybody was attacking me. It was a 3 v 1.
01:18:38He went, got a gun, shot, wildfire, and we fought. He shot at me twice. Praise be to Allah, wasn't hit.
01:18:44We started looking into who is Zul Karib Natambu and found that they had a history.
01:18:51Zul Karib Natambu allegedly first met Antonio Brown in 2022 when they were both in Dubai.
01:18:58Shortly after leaving the NFL, he was, at this point in time, traveling with the boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.
01:19:05According to the court records, Natambu had some jewelry that he agreed to let Antonio wear,
01:19:12presumably to help promote his jewelry business.
01:19:16Then when Natambu allegedly asked for the jewelry back, Brown said he didn't have it.
01:19:21After this back and forth, Antonio Brown allegedly gave Natambu a couple of gold chains to hold as collateral.
01:19:30Natambu then alleged that Antonio Brown went to Dubai authorities,
01:19:35and claimed that Natambu had stolen the chains from Brown and led to him being jailed in Dubai for a period of several weeks.
01:19:45Listen, I spent 40 days in a Dubai jail because we were out there for a Floyd Mayweather fight.
01:19:51He tried to defraud me out of a multi-pendant and a design that I was trying to go talk to,
01:19:55well, I was going to talk to Floyd about being an ambassador for.
01:19:58Natambu then filed a lawsuit against Antonio Brown for not returning the jewelry,
01:20:04which was estimated at six figures, and wrongful imprisonment.
01:20:09Antonio Brown initially did not respond to this lawsuit,
01:20:14which led to Natambu earning a judgment.
01:20:18And that judgment has, as far as I'm aware, still not been paid.
01:20:22Fast forward and the Washington Post reported that an arrest warrant was signed by a judge.
01:20:28He was charged with attempted second-degree murder.
01:20:35Well, a warrant has been issued for former Bucks receiver Antonio Brown for attempted murder.
01:20:41AB is wanted.
01:20:43What?
01:20:44Yes, you heard that right.
01:20:45Antonio Brown!
01:20:46What are we even doing here, Antonio Brown?
01:20:50Damn, AB, this is not a good look, bro.
01:20:53The first thing I thought about was, thank God, he didn't actually kill somebody.
01:20:59After 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.
01:21:10Clips of him riding a bicycle, and jumping at a trampoline park, and getting a haircut.
01:21:18Ah, my eyes, all right, bro?
01:21:20No, this is too icy, bro.
01:21:22He also wrote on social media that the charges were unfounded, and he often posts on X and uses memes.
01:21:30And one of them, the caption was something like, Miami authorities, and it was people dressed up as clowns.
01:21:37The way that he was posting indicated that, from 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.
01:21:48You're going to need to come back to the United States at some point.
01:21:52I don't give a run, AB!
01:21:54People on the run don't post their whereabouts.
01:21:56He was perhaps on the run, but certainly not running.
01:21:59Everybody, they knew where to find him.
01:22:11We 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 AB'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.
01:22:36Saying, hey, I'm in Dubai. Maybe he thought that we couldn't extradite from there.
01:22:40But we worked along with Dubai police, and he was taken into custody.
01:22:45A 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.
01:22:57The guy I knew then wanted something.
01:23:01Wanted to succeed. Wanted to make it.
01:23:05I hope and I pray that things get better for him.
01:23:11Maybe this thing is a good scare.
01:23:13Bring him back right center.
01:23:15If you were to ask me do I think Antonio Brown would just voluntarily try to,
01:23:19in his right mind, attempt to kill someone, I would tell you no.
01:23:24It's unfortunate because, you know, Antonio Brown is an impresario in the NFL.
01:23:31It's unfortunate because he's a father, and it's unfortunate because you don't want to see anybody,
01:23:38let alone Antonio Brown, be associated with anything potentially criminal.
01:23:46Retired NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown pleads not guilty to attempted murder.
01:23:51Brown appeared virtually in a Miami courtroom today.
01:23:54In addition to the not guilty plea, Brown has also requested a jury trial.
01:23:59It's very difficult to understand and accept the reason why he made those choices and the history that led him to it.
01:24:15Antonio Brown's story is so complicated.
01:24:20It 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.
01:24:40Maybe it's that. We don't know.
01:24:42His story says something about how you navigate life as someone in not just pro sports, but in the limelight, right?
01:24:50How difficult it is when you're influenced by money, when you're influenced by attention and star treatment,
01:24:57to maintain your, if not sanity, your person, right? Who you are to maintain your core.
01:25:04I think the NFL has much more responsibility for the health of their players after they leave the league than what they've shown.
01:25:12These guys risk their lives for you. They're getting hit on the head every five minutes. They're gladiators.
01:25:18There's no way anybody can come out of that and be okay. And then you roll in there the millions of dollars, the fame.
01:25:25And these guys, man, it's hard to come out of that and be okay, let alone good.
01:25:30Right now, he's probably the biggest cautionary tale about the NFL and fame, the pressures athletes face,
01:25:39what can happen when people who don't have the right support system immediately get a whole bunch of money.
01:25:45If you're not in a program that's trying to address financial literacy, emotional health, mental health,
01:25:52and you are making a lot of money, there can be more Antonio Browns out there in the coming years.
01:26:00Last time I saw Antonio Brown was at a high school basketball game.
01:26:06I told him, hey, man, you started to get gray hair and stuff like that.
01:26:09And he was like, yeah, coach, a little stressed. I said, yeah. I said, you know, you could take some money.
01:26:14You could take some of that stress away, you know, just by doing the right thing.
01:26:19He 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.
01:26:29But the only thing we know is in the end, he's responsible for all of this.
01:26:34Tony, this is all happening on your watch. It's you. It's not other people. It's you.
01:26:42And you got to figure your way out of this somehow, some way.
01:26:46Even if there was help that he needed, he's responsible for being the one to go get it.
01:26:51And I think that it is easy to use him as an avatar to explore a lot of different issues.
01:26:57But the common denominator in everything that's happened to him, good or bad, is Antonio Brown.
01:27:01And when all is said is done, the one that's going to have to answer for it all is him.
01:27:04I think Antonio, you know, there were moods and modes, what mood he was in, what mode he was in.
01:27:11I always worried about that. But for a long time, he did well.
01:27:17The one thing I would tell him is to open the book and rely on the only person you have ever counted on.
01:27:26As Jesus, go back to him. Because some of the things that are going on are going to bring you back to him anyway.
01:27:35And we can fall off the cliff. And I think if you see a guy as talented and as sharp as Antonio Brown was,
01:27:42fall off that cliff, then you better believe you can too.
01:27:56for a short point.
01:27:57He has never noticed it anymore.
01:28:12What makes youayed her his step?
01:28:14And isn't that sad, he was going to be in the book, who needs the speaker is alive.
01:28:17And he was he?
01:28:19And I think he is...
01:28:19It's not that sad.
01:28:21What makes you want it to do?
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