NASCAR team owner makes strange Antonio Brown offer

The Money Team Racing NASCAR Cup Series team owner Floyd Mayweather Jr. made an interesting offer regarding NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown.

After several years of rumors, Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s NASCAR Cup Series team, The Money Team Racing, finally made their debut in the series this past February in the 2022 season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

A heroic comeback effort in the first Bluegreen Vacations Duel qualifying race, which included a last-lap pass on MBM Motorsports’ J.J. Yeley, allowed Kaz Grala to land the Mayweather-owned team in the “Great American Race” for the first time. Tony Eury Jr. served as the #50 team’s crew chief for the event.

Grala went on to finish the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked oval in Daytona Beach, Florida in 26th place behind the wheel of his #50 Chevrolet.

Since then, The Money Team Racing have competed in one more race, the late March event at Circuit of the Americas. Grala competed in that race as well and finished in 25th place, again with Eury atop the pit box.

But the team’s NASCAR success hasn’t stopped Mayweather from trying to get his friend Antonio Brown back into the NFL.

Mayweather is offering $20 million if a team signs the embattled receiver and it doesn’t work out for any reason, on or off the field. Here is what he had to say about the matter on the podcast “The Pivot”.

"“I think AB is really misunderstood. He just wants to be treated fair. And this is for any team that’s watching right now. We’ll make them a deal: if they sign AB and AB go through the whole season, no problems at all, and then they gotta give us $20 million. But if he mess [sic] up, then we’ve gotta give them $20 million. So if any team want to match that, you know, reach out to us.”"

Brown’s NFL career has taken a number of interesting turns since the 2018 season, a tumultuous ninth and final season for him with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He rejected a trade that would have sent him to the Buffalo Bills for the 2019 season, and he was traded to the Oakland Raiders instead. But due to offseason drama, he never played a game in the AFC West, as he was cut before the season began.

He then signed with the New England Patriots, where he played just one road game in 2019. Off-field issues prevented him from playing a single game in New England.

When Tom Brady left the Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the 2020 season, Brown was immediately rumored to join the team. Of course, those rumors were shot down at first. But during the 2020 season, “fake news” became “real news” and he ended up there after all. The team went on to win Super Bowl LV.

Then came the 2021 season, when injuries and a suspension for lying about his COVID-19 vaccine card kept Brown off the field for a number of games. Then in their late-season game against the New York Jets, Brown’s Buccaneers stint came to an abrupt end with him taking his shirt off, flashing the peace sign to the MetLife Stadium crowd, and jogging off the field in frustration.

Nevertheless, it looks fairly obvious that he wants to return for the 2022 season, and a number of teams have been rumored to be in the running for signing 33-year-old Miami, Florida native.

The NFL season isn’t due to get underway for more than four and a half months, so this will likely continue to be a storyline to watch as the offseason progress.

But one can only wonder what an additional $20 million investment would do to improve Mayweather’s Cup Series team. As for turning Brown’s career around, is a sixth different team really the answer, given what the last three and a half years have seen?