It’s easy to poke fun at Antonio Brown over what happened Sunday in New York, but could the (now-former) Tamp Bay Buccaneers receiver be going through something serious, like a mental health crisis?
Speculating about such things shouldn’t be done until all the facts are known. However, many have used the context of Brown’s career, the postgame remarks from Tom Brady and what we know about CTE to suggest that Brown’s issues go beyond pure petulance.
During his Monday morning “The Greg Hill Show” WEEI interview, Bill Belichick was asked both about Brown and about how the Patriots and other NFL teams approach mental health.
“That’s important for all of us,” New England’s head coach said. “We have a number of people who are involved in one way or another in that area. Certainly our medical staff. But, you know, there’s an awareness from other people in the organization — coaches and other staff members, and so forth. Each one of us is different, each one of us is unique. We try to have a team structure, and we have to work individually with guys as stuff comes up.”
Belichick then hinted at Patriots players going through mental health issues last season, but did not go into specifics. He also offered further thoughts on the topic as a whole.
“You know, players last year, you know, the situation where… I mean, look, there’s multiple situations,” Belichick said. “But, where things come up, where we can be helpful, we try to do that. I didn’t really see what happened yesterday, so this isn’t about that, it’s just in general, that’s how we try to handle the mental health side of it. Very important, and it’s something everybody’s very aware of. We talk about it on a pretty regular basis. Football players are tough, they like to block out, and try to block out distractions and things that could affect them on the football field. But, at the same time, you’ve gotta live your life and deal with other things. And, so, it’s trying to find that balance.”
In case you missed it, during the Bucs’ eventual win over the Jets, Brown stormed off the field after being benched and then told to go back into the game. He refused, threw his equipment into the stands ran toward the locker room while hyping up the MetLife Stadium Crowd.
