Antonio Brown To Meet With NFL

Embattled free agent wide receiver Antonio Brown is scheduled to meet with the NFL next Thursday, according to Josina Anderson of ESPN.com (Twitter links). Brown is reportedly “eager” to sit down with the league, and there are still teams with interest in signing the veteran wideout, per Anderson. The league’s investigation into Brown is not expected to be completed any time soon, tweets Ian Rapoport of NFL.com.

The NFL and Brown had been at something of an impasse: clearly, no club was going to take a chance on adding Brown to its roster while investigations into rape/sexual assault allegations against him were still ongoing, but it was unclear if or when Brown would actually meet with the league. Any team that did sign Brown would have been taking the risk that he’d be placed on league-imposed leave as soon as the contract was signed.

As Dan Graziano of ESPN.com notes (Twitter link), Brown is up against the clock in terms of playing during 2019. There will seven weeks left in the regular season when Brown meets with the league, so a suspension of six games or longer would represent the de facto end of Brown’s season.

Brown’s agent Drew Rosenhaus has indicated a number of NFL teams have interest in signing his client, but thus far, only the Seahawks have been definitively linked to the ex-Steeler/Raider/Patriot. Seattle has since acquired another former Patriot — Josh Gordon — off waiver, making the Seahawks an unlikely destination for Brown.

Brown, 31, has caught 841 passes for 11,253 yards over the course of his ten-year career. The bulk of those catches and yards came between 2011 and 2018: he saw limited time as a sixth-round rookie with the Steelers and appeared in only one game for the Pats this year.

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