The Raiders thought they were about to begin a new and successful era in 2019. They had signed an exciting head coach-general manager duo in Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock, and they had acquired arguably the best wideout in the league in Antonio Brown. It was Super Bowl or bust. But unfortunately, it was bust. A big-time bust. Vontaze Burfict, who was a member of that 2019 Raiders team, truly believes that if Brown had stayed, things could have been different.
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Burfict and Gruden recently reminisced about that 2019 team that could have been. Massive expectations shriveled into nothing as soon as Brown’s antics started causing issues.
The team was then forced to release AB a few days before Week 1 for “conduct detrimental to the team,” which ranged from chewing out his GM to posting private phone calls with his HC on social media. The Raiders struggled to a 7-9 finish that year, but Burfict can’t help but dream about what could have been.
“It was beautiful though, man. I think that team would’ve been.. we would’ve been to the Super Bowl.”
Burfict and Gruden laughed as they recalled the unprecedented way AB arrived at training camp that year: in a hot air balloon. The linebacker also fondly reminisced about how fun that training camp was for them.
“I don’t remember [AB] walking up, I just remember a hot air balloon or something. I was like, ‘Who the f*** is that?’ … That was my funnest training camp ever. We know Antonio Brown didn’t show up that much but that was my funnest training camp… And we lived right there, the hotel was right there, the field was right there, the weight room was right there, everything was just so perfect, bro. “
Unfortunately, as Gruden pointed out, none of these three lasted long there. We already discussed AB, but Gruden was also canned just a couple of years later in 2021. Burfict’s career ended in Week 4 of that 2019 season, as another dirty hit to the head led to a suspension for the remainder of the year. He never played in the NFL again.
The fact that Burfict and Brown were teammates, even for a few weeks, is remarkable. Back in 2015, Burfict had delivered a brutal hit to Brown’s head that caused the wideout to instantly lose consciousness. It also became the catalyst for a Steelers playoff comeback win over Burfict’s Bengals.
Some say that hit is what triggered Brown’s remarkable change of personality in the following years. However, Gruden says Burfict and Brown actually got along pretty well during the few days they spent together.
“The two of those guys, they mixed pretty good, they kinda laughed with one another. And Richi [Incognito] was the third part of the party. Those conversations were great. You talk about ball bustin’.”
Burfict is certainly correct that this team—with Derek Carr in his prime, Josh Jacobs in the backfield, and Antonio Brown out wide—could have made some noise in the AFC that year. Unfortunately, the 2019 Raiders will instead go down as one of the biggest dumpster fire “what could have beens” in recent NFL history.
