Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown came into the National Football League as an unheralded player. Brown was a sixth-round draft pick of the Steelers in 2010, and for players taken that late in the draft process, there is not a big draft party or an opportunity to meet NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as players in his bracket typically receive a coach flight to the team’s facility. As a rookie, Brown was a reserve player on a Steelers team that won the AFC Championship. But in 2011, Brown gained 1,108 receiving yards on 69 receptions which wasn’t bad for a guy that only started three games that year. And through the retirement of longtime Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward while Pittsburgh also allowed wide receiver Mike Wallace to leave as a free agent, Brown has become the go-to-guy for quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in the Steel City along with developing into a household name in the process.
Brown is a three-time Pro Bowl selection and in four of his six National Football League seasons, he has gained at least 1,000 yards receiving. In 2013, Brown set a Steelers single-season record with 1,499 receiving yards and he followed this up in 2014 with 1,698 receiving yards which was the fifth best single-season by a wide receiver in NFL history. This season Brown’s 1,002 receiving yards are second in the NFL as he is having another Pro Bowl caliber year in spite of not consistently having the services of Roethlisberger who has been dealing with injuries. Brown has done this in 2015 by catching passes from three different Steeler quarterbacks along with now having more of a focus on him now that running back Le’Veon Bell is out for the year with an injury.
This season Brown has five games in which he has gone over the century mark in receiving, but he saved his best outing for this past Sunday as he tallied 17 receptions for 284 receiving yards against the Oakland Raiders which was the ninth best game for a wide receiver in NFL history. Brown is already fourth on the Steelers all-time list for receiving yards and if he continues to wear the black and gold, he will catch Ward for the franchise’s all-time mark in receiving yards.
At 5’10”, 181 lbs., Brown is not an imposing physical presence, but his speed and elusiveness make him a matchup nightmare as he is extremely difficult to keep up with. And to the Steelers credit, they do a good job in moving Brown around in offensive formations which makes it tougher for opposing defenses to get a read on him. In professional sports, speed kills, and Brown has a wealth of it as he’ll test an opponents endurance and agility while also helping the Steelers transcend from a franchise that had a hard nosed reputation of being a physical running team to a team that now lives and dies by airing out the football.
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