Attackers Antonio Brown and Jon Gruden hug with hard knocks

I guess Antonio Brown's issue Body Issue could only be solved by becoming a penitent and enthusiastic companion. He fought the law, the law yawned, got up, mixed a glass and hammered it, and he went to carpet to be an Oakland Raider playing the best friend by Jon Gruden Hard blows.

And Gruden, it must be said, played just as well by playing his generous and kindly benefactor in return.

Of course, he also played on Hard blows and for Hard blowswhich means it was a meticulously staged advertisement to fool the critics and maybe nothing more. The cameras were there to help get the message across, allow Brown to keep a face measurement, and allow Gruden to allow his best offensive player to participate in a full-time event.

It will not be the last time the two men will cross shields, of course, but since the public interest in Brown's helmet was over, it ended with a televised whine in the air. Nationally … almost as if it was a long and complex process. a device designed to help us and him through the tough days of training camp.

You would almost like that to be the case. Tell the story of rage and dissatisfaction with a semi-uncontrollable media, then create the make-up scene on highly controllable media. After all, Gruden told Brown that he had treated the dramas in a "seamless" way, no matter what that meant, and had even said the team was aware of his dissatisfaction with the film. regards the helmet since the beginning of the OTA. Even if none of this was designed to arouse the interest of a team otherwise devoid of any functionality, it was the same after Tuesday.

But even if you thought it was a real tragedy, you are also faced with the real possibility that Brown-as-rebel has already jumped on the shark and that it's not it remains more than two options: to play football at a high level. without further complaint, nor grumbling for fewer and deaf ears about a new injustice that could very well place him in a city other than Vegas.

In other words, Brown has made a caricature (and every stroke of a pen has fascinated us, at least for a while), and there are not many ways to get back to that. Gruden was already a kind of caricature, his best years and his most sincere years still when he had swung past the mill of Al Davis 20 years ago. Brown may have new things to watch out for, but that's not a way to bet, and Gruden is already showing wear on his entertainment tires (is the personification of Frank Caliendo still a thing for us after two decades, or just for Gruden?).

Everything seemed old and tired at the end, including loving us as much as we did. And now that everyone pretends to be satisfied, we can all continue our days knowing that, as we should have expected, nothing has happened, everyone is a little more cynised and no one has really won. A little time has just been killed is everything, and the beast has fed something that looks like a steak, but had the taste of porridge – a metaphor like the player, the coach, the trainer, the trainer. team and the show. I suppose Hard blows really showed us inside the game after all.

Ray Ratto would feel cheated by all this, but he still feels like that.