‘DWTS’ Week 3 recap: Antonio Brown Jr. steals the show

“Dancing with the Stars” welcomed many an NFL player over its first 21 seasons, but Season 22, which premiered on Monday, March 21, features three: newly-minted Super Bowl MVP Von Miller from the Denver Broncos, Pittsburgh Steelers All-Pro Antonio Brown and former Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie, a Canadian Football League legend who also spent 13 years in the NFL. We’ll be posting recaps each Tuesday morning until all three are eliminated – or one wins.

How can you get football players to cry? Get them to talk about their most memorable years. That was the theme of Monday’s “DWTS” Week 3 episode, and maybe no one had a more emotional night, and got more tears from the crowd, than Doug Flutie.

The 53-year old called 2015 his most memorable year: last November, Flutie’s parents, Dick and Joan, died on the same day.

“Dad had been ill, he was in rough shape,” Flutie says in his intro video. “After a week in the hospital, my dad passed away. Dad had passed, mom got up, walked over, gave him a kiss on the forehead and then fell forward and was gone.

“Losing both parents in the same day, I still struggle on a daily basis to understand what happened. I had the opportunity to let my father know how I felt about him; I didn’t have that opportunity with my mother. The doctor said the only explanation is what they call ‘dying of a broken heart.’”

Flutie and his partner, Karina Smirnoff, dance a waltz to “Rainbow Connection.” The performance was the opposite of last week, when a shirtless Flutie danced the paso doble, an aggressive dance about power; on this night, dressed simply in a gray pants and a gray vest over a white button-down, he had to be light on his feet. There was a moment at the end where Flutie tripped over Smirnoff’s feet as she spun on the floor, but even DWTS’s finicky judges didn’t mention it.

“They’re right with you, they’re very, very proud of you,” Bruno Tonioli told Flutie. “You really tried for this kind of lyrical, smooth quality in the waltz and you did it very, very well. You were so connected emotionally it’s almost hard to criticize you.”

Almost.

Tonioli went on to mention that Flutie did not maintain his fluidity throughout his dance.

Carrie Ann Inaba dabbed tears as she spoke to Flutie.

“This is how your parents live on, when you dance like that, with just the pure emotion that you danced with. I give bonus points when you rip our heart out…you caressed my heart into this beautiful fairy tale love story and you created magic,” Inaba said.

Head judge Len Goodman told the pair, “It was a little unstable at times, but it had elegance, it had style, it had emotion, and it truly was two people coming together and dancing as one. Well done.”

Flutie receives a score of 7 from Inaba and Tonioli, and a 6 from Goodman, matching the 20 total he received last week.

Former “The O.C.” actress Mischa Barton, who couldn’t have pouted, whined and seemed disinterested more than she did in her brief time on the show, was mercifully voted off, but Flutie was again in the bottom three. With several remaining competitors looking strong, he may be in trouble next week, though his emotional performance Monday night may lead to a groundswell of fan votes.

Odds of winning: 15/1

It’s hard to blame Von Miller for picking this year, even as it is far from over, as his best year.

“Me and my teammates, we won the Super Bowl,” Miller says. “It doesn’t get any bigger than that.”

We meet Von’s brother Vince in his pre-dance video; with tears brimming in his eyes, Vince recalls the moment Von was named Super Bowl MVP. “My mom was crying, my dad, he was cheering. It was just…happy,” he says.

Von explains that their father didn’t want him and Vince playing football when they were kids, but their mother signed them up behind his back. The secret was easier to keep because their dad worked on the weekends, but the boys would get changed in the family Suburban on the way to practice, then change out of their uniforms in the truck on the way home.

“I just thought that was regular; I thought every kid that played football did that exact same thing,” Von says. “It wasn’t until we were in the championship game my mom finally told him. He wasn’t the happiest, but I’ve been playing football ever since.”

He picks Phil Collins’ “In the air tonight” as his song for the week, the tune he says is in his headphones before every game to get him in the right frame of mind.

Miller and partner Witney Carson do a contemporary dance featuring a lot of lifts, taking advantage of his strength.

While Goodman was complimentary, telling Miller it’s clear he is giving 100 percent effort, Tonioli jumped out of his seat to gush about Miller’s physique (he danced shirtless).

“You won the Super Bowl, now you won the Super Hunk 2016!,” Tonioli shouts. “That is a work of art, sculpted to perfection. It was very, very difficult to look at the dancing actually.”

Carson can only giggle, and Miller scrunches up his face, smiling.

“Extremely hard!,” Tonioli continues. “Forget about Witney, anway, who cares? Sorry, sorry…seriously, you’re huge and yet you’re very, very light” – at this point, host Tom Bergeron implores him to focus – “One thing, work on your turns. Because you’re big and your center of balance if very high, you have to keep the balance within yourself, if not you go off kilter and it throws the rest of the dance off. Practice the turns.”

Inaba, who called Miller “soft and silky” after his Week 1 performance, was lukewarm.

“I watched you play in the Super Bowl; it was amazing, you were like this dominating beast that controlled the whole game and the whole field the whole time. I’m going to tell you something because I think you have more potential than we’re seeing. I feel like you’re giving us not 100 percent,” she said, hearing boos from the audience. “It was very nice, it was pleasant, but I want more from you.”

Miller got the same scores as Flutie: 7 from Inaba, 6 from Goodman and 7 from Tonioli.

Odds of winning: 10/1

All three NFLers received a scored of 20 on this night. Antonio Brown, who would seem to be a natural in this arena with his mega-watt smile, distinct personal style, and being smaller than Von (and therefore, in theory, a more nimble dancer), hasn’t really been a standout to this point.

Brown went with 2007 as his most memorable year; that was the year he became a father for the first time, to son Antonio Jr., when he was a freshman at Central Michigan.

“When I saw my son for the first time, I knew right there that I had to work hard to make sure that I could take care of him to give him the life I never had,” Brown said in his pre-taped video. “It was difficult for me to not have my dad around, knowing I didn’t have that support system from him or that leadership to show me how things are done. It’s important for me to give my kids a better childhood because that’s what generations should do. We all should make the next one better.”

“This is about you being a dad and one thing you tell me is your kids are the purest love you’ve ever known,” partner Sharna Burgess says.

Brown’s namesake got to take part in the dance with him, stealing the show as he did a few final steps with his father as the music faded out on the performance.

The highest compliments after their dance were for Antonio Jr.; Inaba pulled out her “10” paddle and said it was just for the little boy, while Tonioli called him “a weapon of mass enchantment!” (He really did. We wouldn’t lie about this.)

But Inaba and Goodman disagreed on Antonio Sr.’s performance, with the former saying she saw refinement from him during their waltz, but Goodman saying he wanted to see more refinement.

Again, a 7-6-7 score.

Odds of winning: 10/1