The Buccaneers are done with Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown may not be done with the Buccaneers.
In an interview debuting tonight on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, Brown’s attorney suggests that litigation could be coming against the team.
The possibility arose after Brown told Gumbel that the Buccaneers “tried to make an agreement with me to give me $200,000 to go to the crazy house so these guys could look like they know what they’re talking about.”
Attorney Sean Burstyn explained that the team offered Brown the payment to “basically sit on the sidelines, go on some list-- and commit himself to some form of intensive mental health treatment. And we were specifically told, in writing, by the General Manager, twice, ‘Don’t spin this any other way.’”
Gumbel asked Burstyn whether he’s suggesting that a defamation lawsuit is possible.
“Defamation comes to mind,” Burstyn said.
How much would he wan
“A whole lotta money,” Burstyn told Gumbel. “A whole lot. It’s totally disrespect, man. You know, it’s -- mental health is an important key in the world, so to drag people along and play on people’s mental health, you know, it’s unfair and unfortunate.”
Litigation, particularly a defamation lawsuit, would be a major mistake, in my opinion. Because a defamation case seeks damages for the impact of a lie on the plaintiff’s reputation, the plaintiff’s pre-existing reputation becomes critical to the analysis. Brown’s pre-existing reputation was, to put it mildly, not good.
Everything he ever did would become fair game. And the effort to delve into those issues via sworn deposition testimony would subject Brown to the possibility of lying under oath, given that (based on the lawsuits filed against him) he isn’t a stellar witness.
Meanwhile, rattling the litigation saber won’t make it any easier for Brown to find a new employer. That’s just the basic reality of the situation, in a closed shop like the NFL.
But Burstyn gets his name mentioned in reports like this one, which gives him a very real temptation to nudge Brown toward suing, even if suing may not be in Brown’s best interests. His best play at this point may be to keep his head low and his mouth shut.
He’s currently doing neither, and it won’t help him get back in the NFL.
