When you think back to Antonio Brown’s entire run with the New England Patriots, all 11 days of it, the writing seems like it had been on the wall that he’d be cut.
Still, it was a little jarring when the Patriots actually parted ways with the gifted but embattled wide receiver Friday afternoon after just one game.
Prior to Brown getting cut, Bill Belichick had a brief and contentious press conference, which he stormed out of, before Friday’s practice. And according to NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero, it actually was after that practice that they decided to cut the 31-year-old, in part because of a promise Belichick couldn’t make to owner Robert Kraft.
“Robert Kraft was not in the building yesterday, he’s somebody who empowers his football people, but he also holds them accountable,” Pelissero said Saturday on NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football.” “Belichick and Kraft spoke after practice yesterday, at the point the key question from Kraft was, ‘how can you promise me that this is not going to happen again?’ Well, Belichick can’t say that he can promise it will not happen again. Collaboratively, they decided it was the best thing for the Patriots to move on.”
To be fair to Belichick, it’s not really a knock on him that he couldn’t make such a promise to Kraft. One thing after another has come out about Brown, including allegations of sexual misconduct, and there didn’t appear to be an end in sight to the problems.
