i didn't watch the news at all this afternoon, figured it was mostly tracking the remnants of hurricane dorian as it traveled north into canada. so it was during the evening news that i first that antonio brown had been released by the oakland raiders. no surprise there, with missed practices, threat of sitting out the season if he can't use his old helmet, and getting into an argument with the general manager after the team fined him for misconduct. at stake was brown's 3-year $50 million contact, $30 million of which would be guaranteed if he played in the season opening game monday night. but management didn't think he was worth the risk, so they essentially fired him.

anyway, that wasn't the big news. i was confused, because while they were reporting the news of antonio brown's release, they were also flashing the patriot's logo below. it took me a while before i realized that the patriots ended up signing him to a 1-year $15 million contract. i was listening to the sports radio yesterday and they were joking that if brown got fired, the patriots would just him up for cheap, as new england is known for rehabilitating toxic players, who have a tendency to thrive under the belichick system.

then while watching the sports news tonight, somebody mentioned that having antonio brown on the team might make rob gronkowski come out of retirement to be a part of the football offense dream team. there was a also the conspiracy theory that since gronkowski and brown have the same sports agent, that this was the plan all along once antonio decided he didn't want to play for the raiders, to start acting up and pretending he was crazy, so the team had no choice but to cut him, in which case he could sign with new england.

as talented as antonio brown is, i'm worried he'll be a disrupting force on the team. hopefully there's language in his contract that allows the patriots to release him if he's just as disruptive here as he was in oakland. but we've had players like him in the past (randy moss, etc.), though once they're on the team and buy into program, they tend to tow the line. too bad he can't play until week 2, since new england faces pittsburgh steelers in tomorrow night's season opener, brown's old team that he left on bad terms.