Antonio Brown abandoned his teammates in their greatest hour of need last season, but according to one report that wasn’t the first, or second time it happened.
Appearing on the “Dan Patrick Show” Monday morning, Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said, “He left the team three times. Once during training camp. They covered it up and said he had an injury. … After the Kansas City loss. … And at the end of the season.” (h/t Andrew Perloff)
The one everyone knew about already was Brown leaving his team hanging before Week 17. He and Ben Roethlisberger reportedly got into it on the practice field, prompting Brown to leave practice, skip team meetings and not come back until Sunday, when he was benched by head coach Mike Tomlin.
If what Bouchette says is true, any notion that there can be reconciliation between Brown and the Pittsburgh Steelers can be thrown out the window. In fact, Brown himself seems to have forced the team’s hand with his public goodbye to Steelers fans in which he made it clear it’s “time to move on.”
Then, over the weekend he did a Q&A session on Twitter and didn’t hold back his criticism of Roethlisberger, saying he has an “owner’s mentality.”
The big issue here is that Brown might be really hurting himself with all this talk, not to mention teams are certainly wary of his past clashes with Roethlisberger and his other locker-room issues.