After being released by the Oakland Raiders on Sept. 7, Antonio Brown quickly signed a one-year, $15 million deal with the New England Patriots, with a $9 million signing bonus.

Additionally, the Patriots have included an optional additional year to Brown’s contract worth $20 million for the 2020 season.

After trouncing the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1, 33-3, the defending Super Bowl champions add one of the greatest wide receivers of all time who is still in his prime.

Brown’s tumultuous stint with the Raiders lasted six months in which he did not play a single game for the Raiders.

After getting into a heated interaction with Ben Roethlisberger, Brown missed a week of practice and was benched for the final game of the 2018 season in which the Steelers needed to win to make the playoffs.

Brown proceeded to request a trade from the Steelers, which resulted a trade to the Raiders for a third and fifth round pick. Shortly after the trade, Brown and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, negotiated a new contract with the Raiders that would pay him over $50 million over the next three seasons, which included over $30 million in guaranteed money.

In May, the beginning of “helmet-gate” began and would last well into training camp. In the beginning of August, news broke that Brown had severely frostbitten feet after entering a cryotherapy machine wearing improper footwear.

The drama continued throughout August during the start of training camp when Brown filed a grievance against the NFL for not allowing him to wear his preferred helmet.

Brown lost the grievance, filed another grievance and lost again. Brown finally decided on a helmet on Sept. 4, which seemed like good news, until later that day news came out that Brown had been fined $54,000 by Raiders general manager Mike Mayock for conduct detrimental to the team. He would also be suspended for the Raiders Week 1 matchup on Sept. 8 against the Denver Broncos.

Brown then posted a photo of the letter he received from Mayock of the fine which led to a heated confrontation between the two. Brown called Mayock a racial slur and had to be held back from Mayock by teammate Vontaze Burfict.

The next day, Brown issued an apology to the team and head coach John Gruden announced that the wide receiver would play in Week 1. Things seemed to be back to normal, until later that night Brown posted an interesting YouTube video showing a private conversation with John Gruden. Twenty-four hours later, Oakland voided the entire $29.125 million in guaranteed money on Brown’s deal and released him.

Shortly after, Brown signed with the Patriots. It has also been reported that Brown hired a social media team to teach him how to make noise to get him out of Oakland.

All of these actions made Antonio Brown one of the biggest wide receiver divas ever.

One week into the NFL season, fans have a consensus on who will be holding the Lombardi trophy in February.

It will likely be the Patriots with the greatest quarterback of all time in Tom Brady, who defies father time, and with Brown catching passes from him.

The Patriots looked incredible in their season opener against the Steelers. New England might have the best defense it has had since Brady has been their quarterback. The Patriots defensive backfield is the best in the NFL, led
by twins Devin and Jason McCourty, Patrick Chung and Stephone Gilmore.

Their front seven is not too shabby either, with Danny Shelton and Michael Bennett, not to mention Dont’a Hightower and Jamie Collins at linebacker. On the offensive side of the ball, the Patriots have a solid core, with Sony Michel, James White, Rex Burkhead and Damien Harris at running back and Philip Dorrsett, Julian Edelman, Josh Gordon and now Brown at wide receiver.

The Patriots have the easiest schedule in the NFL with only four games against teams that made the playoffs last year.

With all that said, Bill Belichick is going to have his work cut out for him with this one. This could go one of two ways: Brown has a season like Randy Moss did in 2007 and the Patriots are the heavy favorites to win the Super Bowl, or Brown continues his crazy actions and he gets released and the Patriots are still the favorite to win the Super Bowl.