Jan 24, 2020 5 min read

Here’s hoping Antonio Brown gets the help he needs.

Brown, of course, has been on a year-long crash that ended this week with him being charged with felony burglary and battery, just the latest in a long line of questionable events that have led the former star wide receiver to spend time with three NFL teams in the past calendar year.

That, of course, includes the Steelers.

Brown has always been prone to narcissistic behavior. Many wide receivers are like that.

The problem is that Brown took it to a whole different level. And he surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-men who were only interested in leaching money off his stardom. And everyone knows how that ends.

Yes, you can certainly be disappointed with how things ended between Brown and the Steelers. And many of Brown’s actions along the way have been reprehensible.

But this oh-so-public crash and burn – much of it of his own doing because he likes to live his life on social media – is just sad.

Here’s hoping Brown spends at least two months getting mental help – and staying out of the public eye. If, of course, he can keep himself from posting all the pertinent information on social media.

Perhaps that should be part of any court-ordered therapy. No phone.

• People trying to blame Brown’s behavior on possible effects of CTE are just making excuses for bad behavior.

Brown has mental issues. Of that there is no doubt. But to automatically blame it on CTE is a stretch.

Brown always displayed many of the same traits that now seem to be on steroids. His is more of a cautionary tale of what can happen to a person when they start believing themselves to be 10-foot tall and bulletproof.

It’s the reason why Roman generals, when returning to the city after a conquest, were followed by an auriga who continually whispered in their ear, “Memento Mori,” which translated means, “you are a mortal.” This would happen while thousands cheered the conquering hero.

Nobody did that for Brown.

• I’ll be making the pitch for Alan Faneca and Troy Polamalu for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Miami next Saturday and it should be an interesting process.

The Steelers already have two members of this year’s Centennial Class in Bill Cowher and Donnie Shell.

Some of the other 47 voters might feel like that’s enough Steelers. But Polamalu should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And this will be the fifth year in which Faneca is on the list of finalists, the most of any of these players. He should have been in long ago. There have been 46 players in NFL history, including Faneca, who have been named first-team All-Pro at least six times. Of those, Faneca is the only player who is eligible for the Hall of Fame who is not yet in.

• The Pirates are traveling around the area as part of Pirates Fest, trying to drum up interest in this year’s team.

And with some young stars such as Josh Bell, Kevin Newman and Bryan Reynolds, there should be some buzz about this team.

But the real buzz continues to be about the team trading Starling Marte, with the San Diego Padres and New York Mets being the main suitors.

Baseball’s system continues to be broken. As long as teams such as the Pirates serve as nothing more than farm teams for the large-market teams, the game will continue to be broken.

• Eli Manning’s retirement last week started the process for the quarterback Class of 2004.

And people automatically assume Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger, the other two high-profile quarterbacks from that class, will be soon to follow.

But Manning almost certainly could have signed somewhere else this offseason. He chose not to do so because he wanted to be a one-team player for his career.

Manning could have gone to another team this offseason and at least opened the season as a starter while a rookie was groomed to take over the role.

If the Steelers had Manning in 2019, they would have made the playoffs.

• Most Steelers fans will be rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl next Sunday to keep the San Francisco 49ers from winning their sixth Super Bowl. That would match the Steelers and Patriots for the most in league history.

But here’s guessing more than a few people in McDonald will be rooting against the Chiefs. Why?

Chiefs head coach Andy Reid passed Marty Schottenheimer this season to become the coach with the most wins to have not won a championship. If Reid wins the Super Bowl, Schottenheimer regains his spot atop that list.