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NFL's Antonio Brown crisis has a familiar ugly theme

When word spread this week about the latest development involving Antonio Brown, a man who has seemingly commandeered more headlines this month than the last year of Watergate, the explosiveness of the news caused jaws to drop league-wide.

That sentiment applied to those working at 850 Park Ave. in New York. For those in the league office, the news of Brown being accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit filed in federal court must have felt familiar as commissioner Roger Goodell and his lieutenants again found themselves figuring out what to do with a star player stuck in a legal situation that stands to bring only negative attention to their cherished shield.