DWTS Week 6 recap: 'Leading man' Antonio Brown jives to 'Footloose'

“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’s Week 6 show re-enacted “Famous Dances” from movies and music videos, a night of nostalgia that spanned generations, and dancers were back with their original partners after last week’s switch-up, when fans voted for the celebrities to be with different pro dancers. We also saw the first NFL player to leave the competition.

Von Miller and Witney Carson get Michael Jackson’s “Bad”, and in rehearsal clips we see that Miller is intent on getting everything just right – “This is Michael Jackson; we’ve got to perfect it,” he says at one point.

One of the DWTS troupe dancers, Shannon, danced with Jackson, and gives Miller lessons on how to dance like The Gloved One did and how to emulate some of his mannerisms.

Miller has done a better-than-expected job throughout the first half of the season, but his affection for Jackson and his desire to get things just right were evident, and he got a huge ovation from the crowd when his performance was done.

The judges were mostly complimentary of their rendition.

“Don’t mess with the boss; that was badass!,” said Bruno Tonioli, standing for emphasis, of course. “I could recognize all the moves…you even attempted the little ‘West Side Story’ reach, which is so difficult to do. Overall you did a fantastic job.”

“You were living!,” Carrie Ann Inaba gushed. “I saw you from the beginning I could kind of sense you were a little nervous, but as you came down through the subway, you were killing it. You embodied him 100 percent. I saw the joy coming through your body, you were free, your movements got sharper. What I loved is everything had your own spin on it… It had a rougher edge to it and I loved it.”

Len Goodman went with his typical play on words: “You didn’t need that wind machine, you’ve got a fan here! That was terrific.”

Despite the high praise, Miller wasn’t able to get higher scores: he was given 8s across the board, for a 24 out of 30.

Doug Flutie, the oldest person left in the competition, and his partner, Karina Smirnoff, were given a dance that was foreign even to Smirnoff: Bollywood style; the pair danced to “Jai Ho” from the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.”

“When I first found out what our famous dance was I panicked, but after some research, I fell in love with this style,” Smirnoff says during their video clip. “I don’t think Bollywood is the dance you would think of when you think of Doug Flutie, but he wants this so bad.”

Flutie says Bollywood might be his favorite dance by the end of the week, and it’s obvious during their performance: he is smiling the whole time and it’s clear that he was enjoying himself.

Co-host Tom Bergeron, who, like Flutie, grew up in Massachusetts, said the dance was “too much fun.”

“I have to say, from Hollywood to Bollywood and it was jolly good. Well done!,” Berman declared.

“It was a very, very catchy number,” Tonioli said. “It was like a bad cold: I will never forget it, it will stay in my head forever.”

Ok, Bruno. Most of us want to forget bad colds, but we’ll buy what you’re selling…

Inaba, as it her way, mixed the sweet with the sour, saying it was by far the best performance she’s seen from Flutie but also criticizing him, saying he missed some steps, which Flutie disagreed with.

He got a 7 from each judge, the lowest score of the night.

During switch-up week, there was a video clip of dancers and stars answering different questions; Antonio Brown’s partner, Sharna Burgess, said she felt Boyz II Men singer Wanya Morris or model Nyle DiMarco were favorites to win on the men’s side, mentioning Brown as an afterthought.

Turns out, Brown wasn’t too happy with Burgess for that.

“I was thrown off a little bit,” Brown tells the camera. “To see my teammate switch teams and down our team, it was kind of like a stab in the back.”

Brown goes into full football-speak when he shares his feelings with Burgess.

“I really wanted to get it off my chest, you know, tell you that we have a team, we should be encouraging and have each other’s back and last week I was feeling like you downed our team. I want to win, I feel like you should want to win it too.”

Burgess is upset that she had upset Brown, but sees now that he really wants to win the Mirror Ball trophy.

The pair’s famous dance is a jive from “Footloose,” but they don’t do much dancing together. Instead, there’s a lot of Brown front-and-center, Burgess and troupe dancers following his lead.

And the judges liked Brown as the star.

“That’s the way to bring down the house at the end of this incredible night!,” Inaba shouted.

“Antonio, tonight you have proven that you are a leading man,” Tonioli said. “You performed this dance as the center of attention throughout, you never lost focus, we could only look at you. You’ve got it all.”

Brown gets three 9s, his highest score of the season.

Not surprisingly, this is the week we see Flutie and Smirnoff eliminated, though somewhat surprisingly Miller and Carson were in the bottom three as well. When Bergeron announces Flutie is heading home, he nods, as though he expected to hear his name. And it makes sense – while Flutie has certainly improved, he’s not as good as some of the other stars still in the mix, and there was no one weaker left to be sent home.

“Just an amazing experience, getting to know Karina, dancing, the whole group as a family,” Flutie said as his parting words, with the crowd chanting his name – “Flu-tie! Flu-tie!” all around him.