I've waited until now to weigh in on this situation. Here's my worthless 2 cents worth.
1. Antonio like so many other brilliant athletes or artists is self destructive. Kind of like Keith Moon without the charm, grace, and humility. Or like Pete Rose, but using himself as the ante.
2. He's just blatantly maniacal.
3. He has CTE. As far as I know about it, it's a binary condition. You either have it or you don't.
4. He wants to totally burn any bridges that have anything to do with Pittsburgh ever. Including Steeler fans. If he could he would knock over Franco's statue at the airport. He wants to march into Heinz Field as a Raider to hear the whole place erupt in non-stop booing, for the entire game.
We've all heard of the infamous Beer Bottle Game in Cleveland. It would be the Booing Game at Heinz Field. He wants to hear Cry Me a River by Joe Cocker, and Leon Russell with Mad Dogs and Englishmen play over the P.A. when he and the Raiders lose.
A kickass song by the way.
5. When he became a Steeler they promised him an orange peanut. That didn't happen.
6. He's weird. He knows what he's doing. He thinks by doing what he did it will strengthen the relationship with JuJu and the Steelers, and the fans. But he couldn't let JuJu know that because it would make JuJu's response seem mannered and disingenuous. He's doing JuJu a favor folks. Hardly, that is a fevered.imaginary scenario.
7. He wants to rekindle that old Al Davis Chuck Noll era Steelers/Raiders red hot almost deadly rivalry to the level it had with The Steel Curtain and The Silver and Black. With players like L.C. Greenwood and Jack Tatum. So as to rev the Steelers up at such a high pitched level they go after him with unbridled vengeance as to cause penalty after penalty. Thereby making it not so much a Raiders win but rather a Steelers loss. As much as I'd like to think that the whole paragraph is true, I can only believe the first part of this paragraph. Because the Steelers play in the same division as the Bengals and that's what they do. So that's been factored in, and Antonio is well aware of that.
8. Antonio didn't want to just win, he wanted to demolish the Steelers entirely, Heinz Field, the fans, the city, and the Rooneys forever. Leaving everything Pittsburgh including the Andy Warhol Museum, Duquesne Incline, and the Good Ship Lollipop flattened and burned like Sherman's March To The Sea. He wanted to see Pittsburgh become a crumbled football dystopian wasteland quivering in self doubt, egoless, hapless, hopeless, begging for mercy, sniveling, crying and pathetic. Engulfed in deadness, fires, looting, villainy, skullduggery, and grievous misfortune.
I love this option the best. However...
(A). The Steelers started out that way. So we've seen this before. Neil O'Donnell was our quarterback.
(B). We just got rid of you.
9. He blew it. instead of saying the right words he said, "Klatu, Verada,...necktie, necturn, nickel. It was definitely an n word...Klatu, Verada, Neee-caughem." Thereby causing havoc, doom, self inflicted wounds, and bad smells.
10. Ten days ago he woke up and said to himself, "I'm an Oakland Raider? What have I done? This is rock bottom, I better keep digging."
I guess I have to pick one of those options. I pick #9.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHA2afBxmbs
Antonio has made it very painful to watch all those great games he played in. Like the Steelers/Ravens Divisional game, and that great catch. And the AFC Championship game against the Jets, and that great catch to win the game. It's very sad. I can't enjoy the AB era winning games until we win two more Super Bowls. I will watch the part at the end where Rex throws the headset to the ground.
Last year my parents gave my son an AB jersey for Christmas. I felt so bad, I bought him a Jack Lambert jersey for his birthday. He should get it in two days.