Of all the chaotic chapters in Antonio Brown’s career, none imploded with the speed and spectacle of his brief tenure with the Oakland Raiders. And former general manager Mike Mayock recalled an incident that unraveled everything that went wrong for Brown during his time there.

“When you go to your first training camp as a general manager, and the guy you just signed to a $30 million contract shows up in a helicopter in the Napa Valley with two burned feet from a cryogenic chamber, and wouldn’t wear a helmet and wouldn’t practice. We ended up nullifying his contracts, his guarantees,” Mayock recalled on 94WIP on Friday.

That was only the beginning. Mayock further revealed that the team eventually put everything in writing.

“And finally, we wrote him a letter that basically said, ‘You’re done. Guarantees are nullified.’ And that’s when he went off on me on the practice field,” he added.

Brown was known for being volatile. He has shown impulsivity and been emotionally reactive.

So, it’s not hard to imagine what went through his mind after reading that letter in September 2019. The numbers alone would set anyone off: $29.125 million in guaranteed money wiped out, plus a $13,950 fine for missing a team walkthrough. Perspective wasn’t exactly part of the equation.

The player took to Instagram back then, publicly airing his frustration over the fine for missing the Aug. 22 walkthrough ahead of a preseason game against Green Bay in Winnipeg. According to ESPN’s Josina Anderson, things escalated quickly at the facility.

Brown confronted Mayock to argue about the fine, then crossed a line, calling the general manager a “cracker” and unloading a stream of profanity. A team source said Mayock walked away when it became clear the situation was getting out of hand, while other players physically held Brown back.

That pretty much summed up his Raiders tenure. One incident bled into the next, each stranger than the last.

Brown once made his entrance on check-in day by floating in on a hot air balloon, just to make sure everyone noticed.

By then, it was clear Brown had turned unusual training camp arrivals into something of a personal tradition. Back in Pittsburgh, during his Steelers days, he arrived at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe by helicopter, bringing along three of his kids and his girlfriend for the ride. This took place in July 2018.

His chaotic personality has never been a secret. And that makes you wonder: why on earth did Mike Mayock sign Antonio Brown in the first place?

Mike Mayock expected more from Antonio Brown

You can say plenty about Antonio Brown, and most people do. But before all the noise, he was simply a football player. And as a football player, Brown was as sharp and explosive a route-runner as the league has seen. That’s part of the reason Mike Mayock wanted him in Oakland in the first place. What Brown had been in Pittsburgh still carried weight.

The Steelers rewarded him with a four-year, $68 million extension. It made him the highest-paid receiver in the league at the time. And for a long stretch, he justified every dollar.

Brown caught 837 passes for 11,207 yards and scored 74 receiving touchdowns over 130 games. He was a four-time All-Pro, a seven-time Pro Bowler, and landed on the NFL’s 2010s All-Decade Team. It made sense that Mayock wanted him.

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But the warning signs were already there. Some around the Steelers point to the 2016 playoffs, when Brown took a violent hit from Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict, as a turning point. Teammates have said that after that game, something felt different. Subtle at first. Then less so.

By the end of the 2018 season, things had fully unraveled in Pittsburgh. Brown clashed publicly with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and asked for a trade. Around that same time, he was involved in an off-field incident where patio furniture was thrown from a 14th-floor apartment window, nearly hitting a child below.

And yet, Mayock went ahead and brought him to Oakland, anyway. He believed there was still something to salvage.

“My anticipation was that he was coming off a situation in Pittsburgh where he wanted to prove everybody wrong and he wanted to ride into the Hall of Fame,” Mayock said in 2020. “We weren’t able to get anything out of him. In hindsight, we lost a third-round pick and a fifth-round pick, and I can’t tell you how much pain that causes me.”

The evidence piled up quickly.

The Raiders released Brown before he ever played a regular-season snap. He landed with the New England Patriots, and somehow, things unraveled even faster. Then came Tampa Bay. Tom Brady personally pushed for the signing, and for a brief stretch, it worked. Brown caught five passes and a touchdown in Super Bowl LV as the Buccaneers beat the Chiefs. He earned another one-year deal, with $3.1 million guaranteed and a chance to make more.

And then, inevitably, it fell apart again. Against the Jets, Brown exited MetLife Stadium mid-game, shirtless, while the Buccaneers were trailing. It was the final image most people will remember.

Nothing truly worked after Pittsburgh. Mayock gambled that the player would outweigh the baggage, that the talent would reassert itself. He chose to look past the red flags. In the end, it was a bet that never came close to paying off.