Antonio Brown Accuses the Raiders of 'Hate' for Fining Him and it's About to Get Ugly in Oakland. Knock if You're With Me
Mike Mayock to Antonio Brown:
“Dear Antonio: As you know, you did not participate in the Raiders’ walk through on August 22. Your absence from practice was unexcused. Accordingly, you are hereby fined $13,950 pursuant to Article 42, Section 1(a)(viii) of the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement and the Raiders’ Club Discipline Schedule.
“You were previously fined $40,000 for missing Raiders’ preseason training camp on August 18. Please be advised that should you continue to miss mandatory team activities, including practices and games, the Raiders reserve the right to impose additional remedies available under the Club’s Discipline Schedule, the CBA and your NFL Player Contract, including, but not limited to, additional fines and discipline for engaging in Conduct Detrimental to the Club.”
Brown to his 3.3 million IG followers:
“When your own team want to hate but there’s no stopping me now devil is a lie. Everyone got to pay this year so we clear.”
As a guy who spent most of his career in the Massachusetts Trial Court writing Barstool posts, I am very much familiar with the Disciplinary Letter. And yet this is the first one I’ve ever read where I can understand all the lawyerspeak language better than I can understand the “They can go fuck themselves” reply that inevitably follows.
Mayock is about as direct in this one as he was when he used to describe some Road Grader guard out of the SEC with sand in his pants and a good pad level. This is boilerplate legalese for “You can’t skip mandatory practices because you don’t like your helmet. You did. So you owe us $53,950 in fines.” Have I got that right? Knock on wood if you’re with me.
And Brown is saying … what, exactly? Like I said, usually these letters to a union member are met with a STFU, a promise that you’re going to fight this, followed by you giving in because it’s in the contract and you take the punishment. Brown seems to be doing none of that. His team want to hate? The devil is a lie? Everyone got to pay this year? So we clear? We most definitely are not clear.
All I can infer is that the highest paid wideout in the history of the league thinks he shouldn’t have to pay 53 grand for skipping practices while perfectly healthy. And maybe he’s saying that he’s going to take that anger out on the rest of the league, which is the best think the Raiders could hope for. But every instinct I have – along with every year of watching this mercurial diva operate – tell me he’s going to be the same seething tower of resentment he was in Pittsburgh. And that it’s going to be Mayock and Gruden who end up paying.