Antonio Brown: Turkey of the Year, but there’s lots of competition

This is a bountiful year for turkeys.  That is, the human kind who do not deserve to be pardoned for all their embarrassing misdeeds.  To me, as Thanksgiving approaches, the Turkey of the Year has to be Antonio Brown, one of the all-time best pass receivers who constantly drops the ball when he’s off the field.

His latest distracting controversy is being accused by his former live-in chef, Steven Ruiz, of buying counterfeit vaccination cards for $500.  Ruiz said he saw the fakes in July, just days before the start of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ training camp.

It was not shocking.  As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk put it: Brown “was long overdue to do something stupid.”

Did a fake vaccination lead to his testing positive for Covid and missing a game in September?  The NFL is investigating.

Perhaps everyone deserves a second chance, but Antonio Brown has had a procession of second chances during the past three years.  

It’s not easy to anoint him Turkey of the Year over fellow NFL receiver Henry Ruggs III, accused of vehicular homicide.  But it’s only a matter of luck that Brown hasn’t killed someone.  

Recall October 2018, when he was sued for allegedly throwing furniture from his apartment balcony that came within a few feet of hitting a toddler.  Brown was sued by the child’s parents and later settled.  A month after that incident he was cited for reckless driving, clocking over 100 mph.

In January 2019 he had a domestic dispute with the mother of his daughter, who told police he shoved her to the ground when she was seeking reimbursement for their son’s haircut. 

In July 2019 he had another chef problem: Stefano Tedeschi suing him for not paying a bill of $38,521 for a Pro Bowl party.  Tedeschi claimed in a lawsuit that Brown refused to pay because he saw a fish head in the freezer that he interpreted as a mob-style threat.  Seems to me, if that’s what it was, he’d be dead now.

In September 2019, Brown’s female trainer, Britney Taylor, claimed he sexually assaulted her on three occasions.  

On and on it goes, Antonio Brown in one ridiculous episode after another.  Remember when he almost froze his feet off during a cryotherapy experiment?  It cost him almost the entire 2019 season.

It’s a shame that he keeps messing up his life and the lives of others, because he has so much going for him, so many assets.  

At 33, he’s lost little of his athletic talent.  No one runs more precise turn-on-a-dime patterns, and nobody works harder at his craft, which is why Tom Brady persists in supporting him.  

Brown is highly intelligent most of the time.  He can be charming.   He has a classically contoured face: high cheekbones, incandescent smile.  Jon Gruden will never compare him to a Michelin tire.  

But aren’t we getting tired of Antonio Brown?  It would feel like relief if the NFL ends his career after determining that he did indeed fake a vaccination and risk the health of teammates and others. 

All that said, there are other turkeys who deserve at least a dishonorable mention:

• Henry Ruggs III: At 22, younger and faster than Antonio, both on the field and on the road.  Police clocked him at 156 mph seconds before his Corvette slammed into an SUV driven by a 23-year-old woman, killing her and her 3-year-old golden retriever.  As if this could be any worse, he failed to show up for a subsequent court appearance and an alcohol test.  Hours after the accident, hospital records showed his blood had twice the legal limit of alcohol.  By the way, is there any reason why cars in America are equipped  to go 156 mph? 
• Urban Meyer, coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars:  He didn’t kill anybody, but he might have wished he were dead after his wife saw the video of him cuddling with a shapely young blonde woman in a bar in Ohio, instead of flying with his team after a game in Cincinnati.  Meyer was publicly rebuked by Jags owner Shad Khan.
• Ben Simmons, Philadelphia 76ers All-Star guard, missed 48 of 73 free throws in the postseason, which set an NBA record for futility.  After coach Doc Rivers and teammate Joel Embiid criticized him, he said he wouldn’t play again for the Sixers.  He briefly rejoined the team and practiced with his cellphone in his pocket, when he wasn’t using it.  The Sixers are trying to unload him and have listed 30 players they’d rather have than Simmons.
• Tony La Russa, Chicago White Sox manager.  Before the baseball season  began, the Hall of Famer was arrested for drunk driving.  We expect this from callow, indestructible 20-year-olds, but a 77-year-old man in a leadership role should know better.  When his team was quickly dispatched in the postseason, he accused the Houston Astros of intentionally hitting star player Jose Abreu.  Astros manager Dusty Baker said, “No reason for us to hit Abreu.  He hasn’t done anything.”  In a country in which sore losing has become a national trademark, La Russa is the face of poor sportsmanship.