Patriots

Sports Q: Are you glad the Patriots signed Antonio Brown?

He's a Patriot, on a one-year, $15 million deal, with $9 million guaranteed.

Wide receiver Antonio Brown during a preseason game. Rick Scuteri / AP Photo

September 7, 2019

Welcome to Boston.com’s Sports Q, our daily conversation, initiated by you and moderated by Chad Finn, about a compelling topic in Boston sports. Here’s how it works: You submit questions to Chad through Twitter, Facebook, and email. He’ll pick one to answer, then we’ll take the discussion to the comments. Chad will stop by several times per day to navigate. But you drive the conversation.

Are you glad the Patriots signed Antonio Brown?

All right, in the spirit of full disclosure and in an utterly shocked state of mind, I’ll admit that the question below was supposed to be the Sports Q right up until the shocking news around 5 p.m. that the Patriots did sign Brown, who misbehaved his way off the Raiders roster earlier in the day:

Should the Patriots sign Antonio Brown?

And this was the answer:

Nope.

No.

No way.

Not if all of their receivers retire before kickoff Sunday night.

I mean, I can answer this in other languages if you want. The answer will be the same.

Actually, this is the rare Sports Q in which the answer rather than the question comes from someone on Twitter, and someone who knows what the Patriots value first-hand: former Patriots Matt Chatham.

This here is the precise reason – or reasons — why the Patriots should not sign him, as talented as he is.

Belichick’s #1 most-repeated criteria for making a guy a #Patriots player:

Is ? important to you?

Antonio Brown—who’s gone out of his way over the last year via media & social to let everyone know he doesn’t need ? —is last guy on ? BB would want now (unless they’re ~free)

— Matt Chatham (@chatham58) September 7, 2019

Everything Brown has done over the last 10 months or so suggests not only that football isn’t important to him, but that he doesn’t want to play it all, from missing the Steelers finale season, to turning his feet into size-12 (or whatever) ice blocks, to the helmet nonsense, to threatening to pop his GM, to throwing away millions of dollars with the Raiders with very little chance of recouping even a fraction of it.

Think about it: The guy is too difficult for the Raiders, who have historically prided themselves on getting the most out of difficult players.

And now he’s going to come here, and for very little money? I can’t see him doing it, and I can’t see the Patriots doing it, either.

He seems like a Seahawk or a Cowboy to me.

***

Well, so much for that. He’s a Patriot, on a one-year, $15 million deal, with $9 million guaranteed. I had to check three times to make sure it wasn’t a fake Adam Schefter account when he broke the news.

I don’t like it, for the reasons stated above, but holy smokes is it intriguing.

So what does everyone else think? Are you glad the Patriots signed Antonio Brown? Are you as staggered as I am that they did it? I’ll hear you in the comments.