Your diva update for today

And now this from the set of As The Buttonhook Turns, aka The Young and the Restless Slot Receiver, aka Luke And Laura Got Nothin' On AB And the Xenith Shadow:

Antonio Brown has found love. Or at least like.

He announced the other day that he and the Xenith Shadow have hit it off, so there goes the Helmetgate portion of the ongoing AB soap opera. The Xenith Shadow is what Brown will wear into battle this season for the Oakland Raiders. AB says it's comfy and doesn't impede his vision like all those other NFL-approved models, and he can have a meaningful relationship with it.

So, that's that.

Ah, but now, of course, there is Finegate, which exploded yesterday when the Raiders fined AB $54,000 for various unexcused absences, and AB responded like, well, AB. Which is to say, like a whiny 5-year-old.

He posted on Instagram the letter he received from the Raiders detailing the fines, and responded thusly: "WHEN YOUR OWN TEAM WANT TO HATE BUT THERE'S NO STOPPING ME NOW DEVIL IS A LIE. EVERYONE GOT TO PAY THIS YEAR SO WE CLEAR."

Um, no, we're not clear. Who's got to pay? The Raiders? Their opponents? The man who shot Liberty Valance?

No, sir. The only thing clear about this is the Raiders are clearly fed up with the drama, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are snickering behind their hands and saying, "Enjoy, suckers." And there's one other thing that seems pretty clear, too.

The soap opera is about to wrap up its run.

It will go dark sometime late Monday night or early Tuesday morning Eastern time, when AB gets open down the seam for the first time and plucks a Derek Carr pass from the sky like a man picking an apple off a tree. And it will really go dark when he does the same thing again ... and then again ... and then again.

Which is to say, once the games start, all the other BS goes away. We'll all be talking about football again, and the Raiders will re-discover why they signed AB in the first place.

Because, well, he's the best wideout in the game. And that's all that will matter.

Look, the only reason Helmetgate and Feetgate and Finegate were Gates to begin with was because, well, nothing else was going on. What else was the media going to bloviate about, whether or not sixth-round pick Billy Bob Hoedown from Northeast Hogjaw Tech was going to stick? How many ways coaches could avoid playing their stars in preseason games? The preseason games themselves?

Please.

No, it's an observable phenomenon that when there's nothing of consequence going on, the media gets bored and turns the inconsequential into something consequential. Or that seems consequential.

But now that the games are starting up?

Shoot. By October, Helmetgate and Finegate will barely be remembered. And by December, we'll all be saying "What was that thing with Antonio Brown last summer? Something about frozen feet and a helmet?"

Of course, that could also happen because by then, the story will be AB bitching about Derek Carr, or about Jon Gruden's high school playbook. But at least it will be about football.

Stay tuned.