While the possibility of Antonio Brown landing on the commissioner’s exempt list remains, the Patriots are tentatively planning on playing their high-profile acquisition Sunday against the Dolphins, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (video link).
Brown practiced both Wednesday and Thursday and appears on track to make his Patriots debut in Miami. The league has not provided any indication a move barring Brown from playing will come by Sunday, per RapSheet.
The 31-year-old wide receiver has been accused of rape in civil court. The NFL plans to meet with the accuser, former Brown trainer Britney Taylor, next week. Taylor alleges Brown sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions. Brown has denied the accusations.
These allegations have marked the latest in an astounding run of drama for Brown this year. Neither the NFL nor the Patriots knew about this until Tuesday, per Yahoo.com’s Charles Robinson, who adds Roger Goodell and league brass have discussed how to proceed with Brown. While Robinson reports the NFL would like to move quickly on this, no decision on Brown’s Week 2 status has emerged two days after the allegations surfaced.
Brown’s guarantees are also indeed in jeopardy. After a Wednesday report surfaced about the Patriots being able to void the $9MM guarantee, Robinson confirms a clause pertaining to Brown potentially “undermining the public image of the club” would allow the team to do this. The Raiders voided Brown’s $29MM-plus in guarantees last week, leading to Brown’s Bay Area departure.
Former trainer who was fired by Antonio Brown? We are supposed to think being is only a civil suit that this is legit? LOL
You don’t have to think anything. You’re an uninformed football fan. Let people do their job. Have fun defending AB in the meantime, he had a stellar reputation for reasonable behavior…..
dude,relax,that poster is allowed his thoughts on the subject.who are you to police ones thoughts on a subject?! nobody,that’s who!
dude. relax. I’m allowed my thoughts on the subject. Who are you to police ones thoughts? Nobody! That’s who!
What a nightmare. Poor Pats and the headache
Poor Pats?? Lol, obviously they didn’t know about the rape case but they knew they were getting a headcase of a person and have been a shady organization that’s won a ton of Super Bowls, I don’t feel bad for them.
Not even a little bit.
Haha my sarcasm filter must not have been on. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving organization
You get the (Edwin) Starr award for comedy.
You poor thing.
we don’t care how you feel! lol
Who’s “we”, nimrod?
Love all the Patriot haters. I bet the whole AB story would be half as big as it is had any other team signed him.
Yeah. The media wasn’t covering him prior to signing with the Pats lmao
That is doubtful. Did you somehow miss the almost daily headlines about AB when he was in Oakland this last month??
Are you dumb? He’s the biggest knucklehead and one of the very best players in the NFL and every bit of idiocy related to him has been WIIIIIIIDELY covered, whether he was a Steeler, briefly a Raider, and now a Pat. Paranoid much?
yup, haters! your raunch seeps from the screen
Followed closely by yours, ‘al’.
Not so much raunch from Al as it’s brown dripping off his nose…he probably thinks his Boston accent is sexy too Lololol
Not as much as we enjoy watching patriots fans defend a douchebag like AB
I don’t like brown. He’s a jerk. But this story sounds fishy. You mean to tell me he sexually assaulted her then continued to work for him ? Also why is this a civil suit and there are no criminal charges ?
Seems to me they fooled around . The fooling around ended so brown fired her and she’s trying to get some money out of him she feels entitled to
If an employer pressures an employee into sexual relationship, which Brown could have by paying her well as a trainer, than she has a case. This is why you don’t sleep with employees ever! I think he will lose and that will be the correct outcome regardless of the amount of shaming the general public would like to place on the victim. Never hire someone and try to have sex with them because this is a very real outcome.
Thanks Perry Mason
Thanks AB nut hugger.
Wow! You’re either an amazing psychic or an amazing clown.
Good job options either way!
There’s no way to prove criminal liability a year plus later since she didn’t inform police. The only way to get back at him is through civil litigation where the burden of proof is much lower (think OJ trial.)
The fact that he emailed/texted her confirming some of the stuff he allegedly did is damning. My guess is it will settle out of court
The pattern of behavior between this, Pittsburgh and Oakland paint a troubled man and the NFL really should have him take a timeout for a bit to get some of these issues sorted out. Just my two cents
Not to mention throwing furniture off the third story balcony and almost hitting people- he is definitely a mental midget after all the hits to the dome
This man needs help, before he hurts himself or someone else, he’s not all there, maybe a brain scam or talking to a head shrink?????, to many concussions
AB has made what we saw with TO seem tolerable, I can’t stomach him, but has anyone seen the videos of them 2 together? As a article reader with no inside knowledge this appears very much to be clear extortion to me
What a bunch of bull.
You guys are afraid to publically support him so you fake some doubt and then tell us about your detailed conclusions of exactly what is going on based on nothing.
So weak
So shallow
So obvious.
Patriots fans as as weaselly as the team.
Brown should be banned regardless of what happens next. His behavior with the Raiders is inexcusable, and he should miss at least eight games.
He should be sentenced to play for your White Sux. Fate worse than death.
So the Patriots can bale out on the guarantees? Pretty intricate contract they hammered out in those few minutes he lasted on the open market. Sounds like tampering to me.
You consider it tampering because it didn’t take days to determine New England was a better landing spot than Cleveland? I will concede that the “undermining the public image of the club” clause seems rather ludicrous coming from a team that signed Josh Gordon.
Hey Sherlock, he signed the contract 3 day later.
Hey genius, he was officially free for only a few hours before it was announced he agreed to terms with NE. He manufactured his way out of town with the Raiders and moments later was a Patriot. So in that small window his agent and their brass worked out the terms of an intricate contract? Ok…
He was released at noon and he was already posting those dumb pictures of himself with $$$ and in a Patriots uniform a few hours later, just missing the 4pm deadline to play in week 1.
“Brown has agreed to a deal with the New England Patriots on the same day he was released by the Oakland Raiders, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport and NFL Network’s MJ Acosta reported, per a source.
The deal is for one-year, $15 million, Rapoport reported, with a $9 million signing bonus.
Brown’s contract contains offset language, so the signing bonus he’ll get from the Patriots, along with any other money earned as a player in 2019 and 2020, reduces the amount he could pursue in a potential grievance over his voided guarantees, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reports.
Brown cannot play in the Patriots’ season opener on Sunday night against the Steelers because he was not on the roster by 4 p.m. EST, but he will be eligible to debut with his new team — his third in less than a calendar year — in Week 2 against the host Miami Dolphins. According to Rapoport, via a league spokesman, Brown will not be allowed be around his teammates in any capacity in Week 1 because he is “not officially a member of the team.”
Roughly six hours removed from Brown’s shocking release from the Raiders following a whirlwind week of discontent, the suddenly nomadic receiver finds himself as a member of the reigning Super Bowl champions.”
Bottom line is the owners should have more respect for the league than to give this clown a job. There are too many good receivers out there to include AB on my team. He can’t even respect his own team let alone the NFL. Give the roster spot to someone that appreciates it. I wouldn’t want to win a Super Bowl by employing the scum of the earth to get there.
Guess you’re not a Pats fan then
When AB gets cut he can become ambassador to North Korea.
if NE invoked “undermining the public image clause” they’d have to also can Kraft.