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Wide receiver Antonio Brown during a pre-season game in Glendale, Arizona on August 15th. (Reuters / Mark J. Rebilas – USA Today Sports)
NFL international receiver, Antonio Brown, has a young child named Autonomy. People who have a strong sense of autonomy do not necessarily get along well in the autocratic and top-down world of the National Football League. Free thinkers like to bend. In the NFL, they tend to break. But Antonio Brown, during a raging weekend, managed to break through the shield: he freed himself from his contract with the disorganized and dilapidated franchise that was the Oakland Raiders and was immediately signed by the defending champion of the Super Bowl, New England. Patriots Yes, it could cost him up to $ 21 million, but freedom has a price in this league, and Antonio Brown was willing to pay it. We will see that the price of his freedom involved more than just money.
In order to control his own destiny, Brown used a mode of strategic behavior over the weekend that was literally digital compared to Raiders' analog. The journalists speculated that Brown was bipolar or even suffering from the concussion syndrome known as CTE. In retrospect, Brown organized a master class on the use of the Internet to humiliate the heavy dinosaurs weighing billions of dollars posing as NFL franchises.
First of all, he posted on Instagram a letter from Raiders General Manager Mike Mayock saying that he was fined for missing practices. That in itself was a break with the NFL protocol, these missives being generally treated with an almost stealthy secret. Then, he uploaded to YouTube a video "house" that must be seen to be believed. As clever as a Nike ad, the video includes an illegally recorded phone call with coach Jon Gruden that takes place under a series of black-and-white images of Brown. We hear Gruden say to Brown, "If you like, stop that shit and play football." Brown replies, "I'm more than a football player, dude. I am a person. In the description of the video, Brown wrote: "I am Antonio Brown, the person who has prepared himself a way to take care of himself. Liberate myself!"
Former NFL player Chris Long tweeted"Players were sitting on wooden stools and answering generic questions about football for local news. Antonio Brown listens to his coach and produces an artistic short film on his personal YouTube channel. This shit has degenerated quickly.
It was reported by Chris Mortenson of ESPN that he was working with experts to make all of this happen. "During the week, Antonio Brown sought advice from social media consultants on how he could speed up his release of the Raiders."
Presidential campaigns could learn from the launch of this campaign on social networks and the resulting provocations. After the publication of the video, which Gruden had initially tried to make laugh – instead of laying charges of illegally wiretapping -, the team fined Brown for "unseemly conduct" for the team ". This is the "red code" of the NFL fines. This meant that Brown's money, his signature bonus of $ 30 million, was no longer guaranteed. He would play week after week.
Somewhere in the middle of this, Brown also had a physical confrontation with Mayock in which he might or might not have described the general manager as "cracker". That led to the coup de grace: Brown posted a post on Instagram that said, "You're going to piss off a lot of people when you start doing what's best for you." He then wrote, "I've worked all my life to prove that the system is blind to allow to see talents like mine. Now that everyone sees it, they want me to comply with the same system that has failed me all these years. I am not mad at anyone. I'm just asking for the freedom to prove to them that they're all wrong. Free Me @raiders #Nomore #theyputblindersonahorseforareason #NoMoreFake
The Raiders, stuck a few hours before the start of the season, fulfill his wish and he is released. Brown, of course, recorded and posted his reaction, which led him to jump with joy and to repeat again and again: "I am free."
After what seemed like a few seconds as a free agent, Brown was signed by the Maleficent Empire, the New England Patriots. Football watchers were left with whiplash.
Brown was traded to the Oakland Raiders, but it was not there that he would have chosen to live, play and raise his family. Yet in the NFL, there are very few options if you find yourself in a similar situation. Try to express where you want to play or live, and you come straight to the "shield": the power of the white billionaires who control the league and the lives of relatively powerless players, who are overwhelmingly black.
NFL players have very little time in the spotlight to make their money and play the game before it stops them physically. As we often notice, the NBA is a league of players where they control a lot of their destiny. The NFL is not. Antonio Brown, by the force of his will, namely his will to annoy everyone, to sacrifice his public reputation and even to question his sanity, was going to be free. He would be autonomous in a league that requires compliance. That he succeeds in these efforts should scare all cigar consumers and Napoleonic coaches. The NFL is analogue and Antonio Brown has gone digital. And Antonio Brown won.
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