Oakland Raiders: Antonio Brown’s release allows team to focus on football
By Justin Fried
The Oakland Raiders have officially released wide receiver Antonio Brown thus ending his tumultuous tenure in Oakland. The team could now move forward and focus on winning games.
The Oakland Raiders have finally rid themselves of the Antonio Brown plague. It’s been an insane series of events that have unfolded over the past few months but now that he’s gone, the Raiders can focus on one thing and one thing only.
Football.
After a reasonably successful offseason that saw the team beef up their offensive line, improve their pass rush, and help out their secondary, the focus should have been on how the Raiders would take the next step forward in 2019.
It should have been on quarterback Derek Carr and his quest to return to NFL limelight. And it should have been on the Raiders three first-round picks and how they would fare in their first taste of NFL action.
Instead, the headlines that engulfed the entire Oakland Raiders organization centered around one man. Antonio Brown.
The Raiders had taken a risk trading for him this offseason after the superstar wide receiver’s tenure in Pittsburgh ended abruptly. The seven-time Pro Bowler would sit out of the final game of the season following a dispute with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
Oakland would trade a third and a fifth-round pick in the offseason for the troubled, but talented Brown. And ever since then, his stay in the Bay Area has been a first-class display of a circus involving a professional football team.
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We don’t have the time nor the patience to rehash all that has gone down during Brown’s short time in Oakland, but it’s safe to say that it hasn’t painted the Raiders in a very positive light.
Far from it in fact.
The Raiders have once again become the laughing stock of the league as a direct result of everything involved with Brown. Their entire handling of this situation has been muffed right down to their ultimate decision to release him on Saturday.
That isn’t to say that releasing him wasn’t the correct decision, quite the opposite. But for it to take this long after days of malpractice and misconduct is embarrassing nonetheless.
It seemed as though every day, or really every few hours, new news would break regarding the situation. Brown went from definitely playing Week 1 to possibly not to potentially being suspended to being reinstated and playing again to now being released.
The Oakland Raiders are talented, but off-field drama could tank the season. light. Trending
That’s embarrassing for Brown and it’s arguably more embarrassing that the Raiders organization allowed such events to unfold in the way that they did.
It’s honestly a bit humiliating to root for this team right now after all that has happened. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Brown is gone and so too is the massive amount of baggage that he brought with him. The Raiders can now finally move past this situation, cut their losses, and focus on winning games come Monday.
That’s all they can really do at this point.
The Brown trade was a complete disaster and they lost two mid-round picks as a result. And perhaps more importantly, they lost their team dignity.
It’s been a tough few seasons for the Raiders but just as it looked as though they would step out of the NFL’s basement and return to prominence, they only further solidified their placement.
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Without Brown, their offensive production will absolutely take a major hit. And with an incredibly difficult schedule upcoming, a postseason berth seems unlikely.
But at the very least, the postseason will become the team’s primary focus. The team may not win too many games this season, but at least the results of those games will be the final headlines coming out.
It was time to move on and the Raiders pulled the plug. Weeks too late perhaps, but better late than never as they say.
A Week 1 meeting with the Denver Broncos awaits this team on Monday, and that should be the only thing on the team’s mind now.
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The drama is a thing of the past and winning can now be the focus of the future.