Oct 27, 2017 4 min read

Some people just don’t appreciate how good they have it.

If someone was to look up ingrate in the dictionary, they just may come upon a picture of Pittsburgh wide receiver Martavis Bryant.

Despite serving two suspensions for violating the National Football League’s substance abuse policy, the second of which brought last year’s season-long suspension, the Steelers welcomed the physical freak back to the roster and gave him a third chance to get his promising, albeit shaky, professional career back on track.

Flash ahead to earlier this week, a time that should be nothing but positive for the Steelers and their fans. The team took a commanding hold on the top spot of the AFC North Division following its most recent win against Cincinnati and now looks healthier than it has all season.

Instead, Bryant is the main story of the moment, and not for his most recent one-catch, 3-yard performance put forth against the Bengals. Rather, the 6-4, 211-pound speedster has become far more vocal about his desire to no longer sport the Black and Gold, despite denying the same sentiment no less than a week ago.

Pointing to a role in the offense that seems to be dwindling more and more as each week goes by as the reason for his public pouting party, Bryant, of course, went to Instagram to voice his discontent with rookie wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster.

“Juju is no where near better than me fool all they need to do is give me what I want and y’all can have juju and who ever else.”

Aside from the lack of good grammar, what sticks out most to me in those 29 words is the same negative quality that has preceded Bryant since before his days at Clemson: immaturity. Ironically, Bryant is pitching his fit, despite ranking third on the team in catches and second in yards. Only Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell lead Bryant in catches, and just Brown is ahead of him in terms of yardage.

While certainly never considered to be a team leader, Bryant, who is in his fourth year in the league, looks more like a spoiled entitled rookie than Smith-Schuster, who is one of, if not the youngest player in the league at just 20 years old. How has the rookie, who has already started drawing comparisons to Hines Ward, responded to No. 10’s calling him out?

He’s done one of two things: kept quiet, or tried to deal with it internally. Strange, you’d think a league veteran like Bryant would know that protocol by this point in his career.

Ironically, if Bryant really wanted to get out of Pittsburgh, the only person he’s hurting with his public outcries is himself. While dealing with divas at the position is something that most franchises have had to deal with, showing the emotional control that he has lacked during his league tenure would do nothing but raise his stock in the eyes of potential trade partners.

Here’s a player that has elite size, speed and hands. There’s not a cornerback in the NFL big enough to bump him off his route and very few safeties who could run with him step-for-step. He should be a superstar, and to be fair, he will probably never produce as much as he could when Antonio Brown is constantly demanding the football. The difference with No. 84 is, he’s proven to be one of the team’s hardest workers, toughest players and biggest producers. At least his monstrous ego is a justifiable one.

However, if NFL teams are as serious as some claim to be when it comes to valuing intangibles like hard work, a team-first attitude and humility as much as 40 times and vertical jumps, Bryant is only killing his own chances at making a living. If he can’t finally grow up, the person that will suffer the most is himself.