‘DWTS’ Week 9: Antonio Brown eliminated in semifinal round

“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.

Monday night was the semifinals, with just five couples remaining, though only three were left by the end of the night.

Antonio Brown outlasted his NFL counterparts on the show, and last week seemed to turn a corner, showing a new level of dedication to practice and his dancing.

This week, he had to learn two dances, one an Argentine tango that he performed with both his pro partner Sharna Burgess and a member of the show’s dance troupe, Hayley Erbert (Burgess says she picked Erbert to dance with them because she’s “super fierce” on the dance floor; we don’t know about you, but we aspire to be just that every day), and also a contemporary with Burgess.

The tango goes well, with judge Carrie Ann Inaba telling Brown that he’s made the longest journey of the remaining five celebrities in terms of his progress on the dance floor.

“Tonight what I loved was the intensity of the movement; you were in the Argentine tango and I could feel you trying to get the nuance,” Inaba said.

Brown gets 9s across the board from the three judges for the performance, matching his highest score of the season, which he got last week with his Viennese waltz.

Before the second dances, we learn a little bit about each star through a video package.

Brown tells us at the start of his that he “had to become a man quick,” and then we see his father, Eddie Brown.

“I was gone a lot. I was gone a lot,” Eddie says. “I felt like I had to go off to school to be able to get a job to be able to take care of the family and send money back and make sure everybody was ok. Then there came a point where me and his mom went our separate ways, and I think that’s when things went astray.”

Antonio agrees.

“My life changed drastically when my mother and dad split apart. I didn’t have that male father figure,” Antonio says.

“He had a lot of bitterness built up toward me; a lot of bitterness, because in his mind he felt like I should have been there,” Eddie says. “Through all the struggles he had to go through, he felt like I was not there and I didn’t care. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I think I would have stayed.”

We also hear from one of Antonio’s high school coaches and one of his college coaches; high school coach Toriano Brooks tells us Brown’s nickname was “Boney Tony” because he was so strong.

Zach Azzanni, his position coach in college, says, “He showed up at Central Michigan with a duffel bag, on the Greyhound bus and he was probably 150 pounds.”

Cut to a smiling Brown, who tells us he went “from underdog to top dog.”

There’s also a message from one of his current coaches, Mike Tomlin, who wishes Brown well as he continues trying to bring the Mirror Ball Trophy to Steeler nation.

The contemporary dance Brown and Burgess perform is done to a slower version of The Script’s “Hall of Fame,” and tries to show Brown’s journey from underdog and sixth-round pick to All-Pro. Another great Steelers receiver, Hines Ward, is in the audience; Ward’s final season was Brown’s second season, and Ward also was a contestant on “DWTS”.

Judge Bruno Tonioli gushes about the shirtless Brown’s proportions and his “12 pack” abs before he’s brought back from dreamland and gets to evaluating the dance.

“I’m telling you, your strength tonight, your connection with Sharna was off the chart, you were lifting her like she was a peanut,” Tonioli said. “For me it was your best dance of the competition.”

Judge Len Goodman, playing off the lyrics of the song, says the performance will “go down into the Dancing with the Stars hall of fame for the most spectacular lifts I have ever seen on this show. Absolutely fantastic.”

Thanks to a perfect 10 from Tonioli, combined with 9s from Inaba and Goodman, Brown gets his best score, a 28.

So at least he ended on a high note. We find out at the end of the show that Brown is not one of the three couples moving on to the final; he and Burgess along with Boyz II Men singer Wanya’ Morris, who has garnered high scores all season, are the two stars eliminated.