Oakland Raiders: A timeline of the Antonio Brown experience

July 9, 2019: Antonio Brown threatens to retire over helmet dispute

Before Brown’s frostbite had even healed fully, he pulled himself from practice and threatened to retire unless he could wear his old helmet, which had been prohibited by a league wide safety mandate.

NFL players are very particular about the helmets that they use, and being upset over a now-banned helmet is understandable. But to threaten to retire over it is a stunt so selfish that only someone like Antonio Brown is seemingly capable of pulling.

He then filed a grievance case against the NFL over the matter, leading Raiders general manager Mike Mayock to say that Brown had to decide whether he’s “all-in, or all-out.” Brown finally caved on August 19th, teaming up with Detroit-based helmet manufacturer Xenith.

It looked like the Jon Gruden and the Raiders had survived their offseason with Antonio Brown. The key phrase here being “looked like.”