Sometimes, the least sympathetic NFL figures end up exposing the league’s most undeniable issues.
That’s the space Antonio Brown occupies today. He’s a man with a litany of self-inflicted problems on his hands, whose two-month pseudo-suspension from the NFL is a concern for the league’s players and the union that is charged with protecting them. That’s not a popular assessment because it wades dangerously close to calling Brown a victim of the NFL’s judicial system. But it is an accurate assessment because there’s little doubt the league’s nebulous investigative purgatory — in which there is no guarantee of fairness, due process or expeditious action — had a hand in keeping him without a job.