Antonio Brown takes parting shot at Raiders

[Steely McBeam]

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There may finally be an exception to the saying, “Once a Raider, always a Raider.”

Receiver Antonio Brown, who was never a Raider for an actual Raiders game, is a Raider no more. He posted a parting shot at the team on Twitter.

“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth,” Brown said.

While hardly the ideal sentiment at a time when Brown is shopping for a new village, Brown’s message invites speculation as to whether he truly felt accepted by the organization for who he is as a person. Although coach Jon Gruden said all the right things, Gruden and G.M. Mike Mayock seemed to be trying to manage Brown with a good cop/bad cop approach that ultimately blew up in their faces.

If they thought they could manage him, they weren’t paying attention to the things he was saying while he was trying to tweet his way out of Pittsburgh. Before anyone else tries to manage him, they need to realize that, while he will indeed show up and work hard and play hard, he can’t and he won’t be managed. He’s doing things his way, and if you want the benefit of his talent that’s the bargain you have to make.

And that will make a deal with New England even less likely. He’s clearly not chagrined or contrite or ready to change his ways to meet the requirements of a team. He wants a team that will changes its ways to accommodate him. Which means that only a small handful of teams will even consider it, if that many.

If these are indeed the ground rules, one team to watch would be Washington, where the village already seems to be burning anyway.