Antonio Brown’s start to his Raiders tenure is beyond bizarre, absurd

The Oakland Raiders hope Antonio Brown can be an All-Pro weapon for the offense but the start to his time has been nothing short of bizarro world.

Frostbitten feet, little-to-no time spent at training camp outside of arriving in a hot-air balloon and now threatening to retire over his helmet — welcome to the bizarre world of Antonio Brown with the Oakland Raiders.

When the Raiders traded a third- and fifth-round pick in the 2019 draft to the Pittsburgh Steelers for arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL, any fan who was paying attention knew that drama would ensue. For all the talent that Brown has displayed on the field, he’s always been a magnet for unnecessary and, at times, unwanted attention. However, he’s reached new heights in recent weeks.

Brown first arrived to Raiders training camp on a hot-air balloon but has barely practiced since arriving due to what was once a mysterious foot injury. However, as he left Napa to see a specialist about his feet, it was revealed that the wide receiver was suffering from frostbite on his feet from not wearing the proper footwear while undergoing Cryotherapy.

We’re going to stop here for a second and unpack the madness of that in itself. We’ve seen NFL players injured in crazy ways before. But to have a high-end talent like Brown missing training camp practices due to frostbite from getting a modern-day recovery treatment is a new level of absurdity.

As noted by Paul Guggenheimer of TribLive.com as he asked Cryotherapy experts how something like this happened, Brown injuring his feet in this manner is unheard of. Not only is it the result of careless practices by whoever stuck the wideout in the chamber to receive the treatment to not make sure that he was wearing the proper socks and boots but it also had to be unbelievably painful while happening.

How he didn’t realize something was wrong and try to address it is mind-boggling.

If you already thought we were living in a broken simulation with the frostbite, though, Brown upped the ante recently. As reported in a long Twitter thread by NFL insider Mike Silver, the wide receiver has been actively against the NFL’s new helmet rules, which disallow the helmet he’s worn with the Steelers due to safety concerns.

Not only did Brown reportedly “loudly” voice his displeasure and storm out of the Raiders facility when told about the change but he’s since tried to sneak his old helmet into practice on multiple occasions, only to be told to get a new one and that he can’t use the old model.

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If that wasn’t strange enough, Brown has now met with NFL officials regarding the helmet issue and, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, he has told the Raiders that he will retire if he can’t wear his old helmet. Oh, and for good measure, there’s also the report that Brown has gone “dark” from the Raiders with no contact with the team.

In Silver’s thread and extensive reporting on the situation, one Raiders teammate called the ordeal with the helmet “one of the most insane things I’ve ever heard.” And that teammate is correct. This isn’t normal. This isn’t how professionals operate. This is the bizarro world of Antonio Brown — turned up to 11.

It’s telling of how incoherent this entire situation is that Antonio Brown is also reportedly a problem in meetings with issues of tardiness and lack of focus and that almost doesn’t matter in this situation. Of course, when you have a guy with frostbitten feet threatening retirement over his old helmet, that probably is the least of your issues.

While the Raiders undoubtedly knew the diva behavior that Brown would bring to the table, there’s no way they could have foreseen this. He’s reaching new levels of absurdity by the day and none of that is good for the team.

Making matters worse is that, after a tumultuous 2018 where Jon Gruden and the Raiders were raked over the coals throughout the year, things seemed to be turning for the better. Gruden and new general manager Mike Mayock are clearly instituting a specific culture of old-school football with gritty, hard-nosed players ready to establish a new culture.

In that, though, there’s no place for trips to bizarro world, especially trailblazing excursions into new realms of bizarro world like Brown is taking the Raiders on right now.

Maybe the helmet issue gets resolved, maybe Brown’s feet heal and maybe he returns to the field and is once again a 1,200-yard receiver that energizes the Oakland offense. But at this point, how can you possibly bank on that? It seems that all Antonio Brown is good for right now is compounding drama with more drama and erratic behavior. Thus, it’s hard to see a happy ending for this situation transpiring.