The Steelers wideout sensation is very athletic and pretty darn good at what he does.
ESPN on the other hand…. well you can imagine my silent ire. Sometimes, however, they do something really cool.
The network’s series Sports Science featured Brown last year and graded him on his precise route running – you know, one of those things he’s really good at. They also tested his punt return ability, but in an extreme way.
The show took a football and dropped it from 350 feet in the air. That’s 4x the height of a non-shanked Brad Wing punt! At that distance wind can wreak havoc on a balls path to the ground making it very difficult to track and catch.
Brown was unsuccessful after numerous attempts. Eh, well. Good try, right?
Sports Science followed up on this attempt, though and brought Brown back for another go.
The results were different this time, and you’ll see from the video that it appears that not only does Brown catch the ball, he does so on the first attempt. You can see that AB is pretty pumped after making the grab in which he had .03 seconds to react at the rate of fall (80 mph).
Hey, I would too after securing a world record.
Steelers Antonio Brown and his record breaking catch of a football dropped from 350 ft. above the field. (Screen shot from ESPN.com)
The downside to AB’s record breaking catch? He’s just about sealed his fate as being the punt returner for the Steelers for the rest of his career in a Steelers uniform.
Ok, that might be a little tongue and cheek, but there’s no denying that Brown is the best returner on the field – not only because he can track a football and catch it like you see in the video, but also because he gives the Steelers special teams the best chance in flipping the field or scoring on his returns.
Brown turned heads and broke an NFL record back in 2011 when he became the only player in NFL history to record over 1,000 yards receiving and 1,000 yards in returns in a single season.
Since then, he’s been pretty much the sole punt return man with a a motley crew trying to return kickoffs with no success.
One of the biggest criticisms lately about Kevin Colbert is that they need to work harder and actually secure a return man for both kickoffs and punts and move that job away from Brown, who risks serious injury (more so than on regular offensive plays) by returning punts.
That’s something you don’t want from your #1 receiver on the team and #1 in the NFL.
Though Brown may have broken a record with that catch, he’s not doing himself any favors.
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