Colin Sheridan: Why Antonio Brown doesn't deserve sympathy or support

Brown’s football-related indiscretions will, in the end, prove far more prohibitive to his prospects than the litany of wrongdoings in his private life

Last Sunday, Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide-receiver Antonio Brown had his Rod Tidwell/‘show me the money’ moment, however his was not a celebration, but a protest, and in a league of countless chances, he may have exhausted his last.

In the closing moments of the much-loved movie Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Jr, playing charismatic Arizona Cardinals wide-receiver Rod Tidwell, has an onfield epiphany. Catching a ball in the endzone for the game-winning score, he gets hammered by opposing players, and with the world watching, lies prone, seemingly unconscious. Suddenly, his eyes open, and he comes to life, dancing around the endzone. 

The dance is not just to celebrate the touchdown or the play-off berth his team has just secured; the dance is for his future, for he’s just realised something. He’s going to get paid. Guaranteed dollars. The hardest thing to come by in the NFL. The certainty that, no matter what happens to his hands or his ankles or his head or his face, he will be looked after. Tidwell may have been a fictional creation, but he gave the league its truest catchphrase: ‘Show me the money’.