Antonio Brown isn't worth the trouble. Not now, and not ever again.

Agent Drew Rosenhaus can send out all the delusional tweets he wants, and Brown can respond to his release from the New England Patriots as calmly as if this were just another case of a couple growing apart. It won’t matter.

Brown is never going to get another opportunity from an NFL team. It’s not just the drama in Pittsburgh and the antics and insubordination in Oakland. It’s not just the civil lawsuit in which his former trainer accused him of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment, and the intimidation of a second woman who accused him of sexual misconduct.

It’s all of it, and the fear of wondering what else is out there. Because if there is one lesson that needs to be learned from these last two weeks – has it really only been that long? – it’s that there is always something else out there with Brown.

The Patriots cut Brown on Friday afternoon, a few hours after coach Bill Belichick walked out of yet another news conference because he’d decreed he didn’t want to answer any more questions about his wide receiver, and reporters kept asking them anyway. Probably more relevant was Sports Illustrated’s report that the NFL had instructed the Patriots to tell Brown to knock off the harassment of the second woman, who has not been publicly identified.

Whether that’s an indication that Roger Goodell was moving closer to putting Brown on the exempt list while the NFL investigates the allegations against him isn’t clear. But if you’re the coach or GM of another team, it will certainly give you pause, knowing you might sign Brown only to see him get shelved for an indeterminate amount of time.

The bigger problem for Brown is that Belichick was his last, best hope.

Brown is a colossal talent, a four-time All Pro who has led the league in either catches, yards receiving or touchdowns in all but one of the last five seasons. But he also comes with enough baggage to sink a cruise ship. Very few coaches and GMs could juggle Brown’s talent and trouble without destroying the team in the process, and nobody was better equipped for it than Belichick.

The Patriots under Belichick are a dictatorship, not a democracy, and everybody toes the line. Even Tom Brady. Players with questionable character become model citizens in New England because, besides not wanting to buck Belichick, they know the payoff is likely to be a Super Bowl title.

As for Belichick, propriety and optics are irrelevant to him. His only concern is whether a player can help his team, and he’ll stick with someone so long as their benefit to the Patriots outweighs their cost. For even Belichick to wash his hands of Brown, everyone in the NFL knows only a fool would think he would have better luck.

Rosenhaus, Brown's agent, will no doubt try to entice some team into taking a chance on the wide receiver. But no one will until the NFL makes a determination on Brown's status and, at 31, his window is shrinking.

It is staggering to think about what Brown has cost himself these last two weeks: more than $30 million, his Nike contract, his career. Yet he has no one else to blame. It was his behavior that put him in the sights of the NFL and made him so toxic to everyone else he might as well wear a hazmat suit.

Britney Taylor, Brown’s former trainer, filed a civil lawsuit Sept. 10 accusing the wide receiver of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. The text messages included in Taylor’s lawsuit would seem to corroborate one of her allegations, though they have not been publicly authenticated.

SI did authenticate threatening text messages Brown sent earlier this week to the second woman, who has not identified herself but told the magazine that Brown had exposed himself to her while she was painting a mural at his home in Pittsburgh in June 2017. SI reported that the woman does not know four of the people on the chain, and the messages from Brown include a photo of her children and a suggestion he and someone else should “look up her background history see how broke this girl is.”

SI also recounted numerous examples of Brown refusing to pay his employees or honor contracts and financial agreements.

Now the time has come to pay up. Only it won't be with checks or cash, but with his career.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.