The Tampa Bay Buccaneers want to focus on repeating their Super Bowl success of last season.
Their now former wide receiver, Antonio Brown, seems hell bent on not letting them.
At least, that is what seems to be the case if you are up to date with the latest developments in the ongoing saga between Brown and the Bucs.
After the wide receiver was publicly perceived to have quit on his team during the game with the Jets last Sunday.
Since then both camps have had their say to try and put their version of events out in public and clarify matters.
Far from crystal-clear clarity, things have just got a whole lot stranger.
Statement from Antonio Brown via his attorney @seanburstyn: pic.twitter.com/pJ3VGFBjSy
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
Ankle Injury Key
As we reported on the day after Brown’s public show of dissent against the Jets, it appeared that Brown had decided to leave the Bucs during the game.
Indeed, after the game, coach Bruce Arians confirmed that Brown was no longer a Buc and refused to elucidate on the matter any further.
After the game Fox Sports reported that Brown had complained of an ankle injury during the second half and had said he could not play.
So, when he was called upon and refused, Brown was told by Bucs coaches that he could not be part of the team, leading to him storming off.
Perhaps oddly, given he was complaining of an ankle injury that left him unable to play, Brown’s dancing and antics in the end zone as he left the field didn’t seem to corroborate with an injured player.
Christmas Eve Texts
Then things got very weird. Brown posted texts with Tom Brady’s trainer and business partner Alex Guerrero, where he asks for a refund for work that Guerrero was not able to complete before Brown left the Buccaneers.
Statement from Antonio Brown via his attorney @seanburstyn: pic.twitter.com/pJ3VGFBjSy
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
Guerrero responded kindly and politely and agreed to send him a refund. Although Brown seemed to indicate this was somehow a poor reflection on Guerrero, even tagging Tom Brady into the exchange.
Quite what Brown hoped to achieve from this remains unclear. It appeared to almost everyone that read the texts that Guerrero had done nothing wrong and had been unfailingly polite in his response.
Antonio Brown then released a somewhat lengthy post via his attorney which explained how events on Sunday had transpired in his view. In the post he denied that he had left his team mates and that it had instead been the Bucs that had terminated his contract on the spot.
Statement from Antonio Brown via his attorney @seanburstyn: pic.twitter.com/pJ3VGFBjSy
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
Brown claimed that the Bucs medical team and management knew he had an ankle injury and had asked him to play despite the pain. When he said he could not, he claimed the Bucs fired him on the spot.
He then said he went to a New York hospital to get his ankle looked at by a specialist to corroborate it was an injury and that he had already arranged surgery to get the ankle fixed, refusing the Bucs request to visit a doctor of their choosing for the issue to be investigated further.
The statement is pretty explosive and uses a lot of disparaging and damaging comments and language, implying that it was the Bucs management team and head coach that were entirely at fault.
The Bucs Have Their Say
A short time after Antonio Brown’s statement, the Bucs issued their own version of events in which Bruce Arians denied many of the accusations made against him and the team.
Bruce Arians explains in detail what happened with Antonio Brown on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/1g45Ib9to1
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) January 6, 2022
Arians denied Brown said anything about his ankle during the game to anybody on his staff and that instead Brown was agitated because he was not being passed the ball often enough. So much so that the Wide Receiver had to be calmed down by team mates at half time.
“The players know the truth,” stated Arians.
According to Arians, when he called the personnel group to go onto the field in the third quarter, Arians noticed Brown wave off a coach and refused to play because “I ain’t getting the ball”.
Bucs GM Jason Licht also revealed on Thursday that Brown and his agent requested the remaining $2 million in his contract for this season for incentives be converted to guaranteed money, which the Bucs refused.
Since then, Brown has released text messages between himself and Bruce Arians from the 30th December, which showed the two had discussed an ankle injury of some sort.
Statement from Antonio Brown via his attorney @seanburstyn: pic.twitter.com/pJ3VGFBjSy
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
Who To Believe?
There’s plenty in this story yet to be discovered and the likelihood is that we are going to see some kind of investigation into what has happened, even if it is just the Bucs having an internal investigation.
So who is your money on being at fault here? Do the Bucs have something to answer, or is this just AB being, well, AB?
