There is no definitive public count of how many concussions Antonio Brown sustained during his NFL career. The NFL does not release comprehensive injury records for individual players, and Brown himself has downplayed his head injury history. What is publicly documented is at least one significant concussion, though the true number is almost certainly higher given the nature of his position and the length of his career.
The Documented Concussion
The most well-known head injury in Brown’s career came during the 2015-2016 AFC Wild Card playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. Late in the game, Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict delivered a helmet-to-helmet hit that left Brown visibly shaken. He was diagnosed with a concussion and missed Pittsburgh’s next game, a divisional playoff loss to the Denver Broncos. Burfict later apologized to Brown in person for the hit.
That play became one of the most replayed hits of the decade, and it remains the only concussion in Brown’s career that was widely reported and confirmed through team injury designations. But a single confirmed concussion over a 12-year NFL career as a wide receiver, a position that involves repeated collisions on nearly every play, would be unusual. Concussions are notoriously underreported in football, with players often continuing to play through symptoms or avoiding disclosure to stay on the field.
What Brown Has Said About His Injuries
Brown has been dismissive of concerns about his head injury history. In a 2019 ESPN interview, when asked directly whether he had CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma), Brown said: “If I had CTE I wouldn’t be able to have this beautiful gym, I wouldn’t be able to be creative. I wouldn’t be able to communicate. I’m perfectly fine.” He went further, claiming he “didn’t take that many big hits” and had “like one big hit in 10 years.”
That characterization is hard to square with the reality of playing wide receiver in the NFL for over a decade. Brown was one of the most productive receivers in the league from 2011 to 2018, catching more than 800 passes during that stretch. Each reception typically involves absorbing contact from a defender, and many routes involve collisions even when the ball isn’t thrown Brown’s way. Subconcussive hits, those that don’t produce a diagnosed concussion but still jar the brain, accumulate over thousands of plays across a career.
The Behavioral Questions
Starting around 2018 and accelerating in 2019, Brown’s behavior became increasingly erratic in ways that drew public attention. He was released or departed from three teams in rapid succession (the Steelers, Raiders, and Patriots), had multiple legal issues, and made a series of volatile social media posts. In January 2022, he left the field mid-game while playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, removing his jersey and equipment before walking off.
These incidents prompted widespread speculation about whether Brown’s behavior could be connected to brain injuries sustained during his career. Neuropsychologist Dr. Hoes, speaking to media about the situation, was careful not to diagnose Brown remotely but noted “a pattern over what seems like years, of behavior that certainly doesn’t seem to be in his best interest. Stuff that seems to be dysfunctional.” He explained that chronic brain injury can lead to psychiatric symptoms, including erratic behavior, but emphasized that a real evaluation would be necessary before drawing any conclusions.
CTE itself cannot currently be diagnosed in a living person through standard testing, though advanced neuroimaging and other assessments can detect some signs of traumatic brain injury. Given Brown’s years of play at an elite level, experts have noted he would be at higher statistical risk for such conditions, but risk is not the same as diagnosis.
Why the Real Number Is Unknowable
The honest answer is that nobody outside of Brown and possibly his medical team knows how many concussions he actually experienced. NFL concussion protocols have improved significantly over the past decade, but they still rely partly on players self-reporting symptoms. A player who feels foggy or disoriented but doesn’t tell the medical staff, or who passes a sideline screening despite having symptoms, won’t show up in any official count.
Research on retired NFL players consistently shows that the number of formally diagnosed concussions during a career represents only a fraction of the actual total. A 2017 survey of former players found that many recalled experiencing concussion symptoms multiple times without ever being evaluated or removed from a game. Wide receivers, who run at full speed into contested areas of the field on virtually every play, are among the positions with the highest concussion rates.
So while the confirmed number for Antonio Brown stands at one, the Burfict hit in the 2016 playoffs, that figure almost certainly understates the cumulative head trauma he absorbed across more than a decade of professional football.