Antonio Brown has spoken.
The wide receiver has been the biggest story in the NFL after storming off the field shirtless during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ win over the New York Jets in Week 17.
A verbal altercation on the sideline with Bruce Arians led to the head coach telling Brown to leave. Arians then told the media Brown’s time with the Bucs was done, but he still hadn’t been released.
With that, Brown felt compelled to share his side of the story with a lengthy statement shared by his attorney, Sean Burstyn, via Adam Schefter.
Here’s an excerpt:
I didn’t quit. I was cut. I didn’t walk away from my brothers. I was thrown out. Being fired on the sideline for having a painful injury was bad enough. Then came their “spin.” Coach denied on national television that he knew about my ankle. That’s 100% inaccurate. Not only did he know I missed several games with the injury, he and I exchanged texts days before the game where he clearly acknowledged my injury. He obviously knew I was on the injury list. And the GM acknowledged after the game in text messages to my camp that I didn’t tell coach about my ankle pain on Sunday. …
… I am reflecting on my reaction, but there was a trigger. The trigger was someone telling me that I’m not allowed to feel pain. I acknowledge my past. But my past does not make me a second class citizen. My past does not forfeit my right to be heard when I am in pain.
First they cut me. Now they cage me. Instead of asking how I felt or getting to the bottom of it, the team texted my camp promoting a totally false narrative that I randomly acted out without any explanation. They even told us in writing “don’t spin this” any other way. I have stress, I have things I need to work on. But the worst part of this has been the Bucs’ repeated effort to portray this as a random outburst. They are telling people that first and then I went home. They threw me out like an animal and I refused to wear their brand on my body, so I took my jersey off.
As part of their ongoing cover-up, they are acting like I wasn’t cut and now demanding that I see a doctor of their choice to examine my ankle. what they did not know until now is that on Monday morning I had an urgent MRI on my ankle. It shows broken bone gradients stuck in my ankle, the ligament torn from the bone, and cartilage loss, which are beyond painful. You can see the bone bulging from the outside. But that must and can be repaired. The MRI has been ready by two top orthopedic surgeons in NYC, including Dr. Martin O’Malley at Hospital for Special Surgery. Not realizing that I had already scheduled a surgery at HSS, the Bucs “ordered” me under penalty of discipline and with a few hours’ notice to show up to a more junior doctor at HSS for another opinion. What a joke. They’re playing like I wasn’t cut, giving me a surprise attack “order” to show up to another doctor with no reasonable notice, and setting this whole thing up as a basis to cut me because what they did on Sunday was not legitimate. Sorry, GM. I already received a confirming opinion from the Top Doc at the hospital you “ordered” me to go to.
I love the Bucs fans. I really do. I love my teammates and everyone who showed me grace and believed in me. I gave the Bucs everything I had on the field. What the organization is doing now needs to get cleaned up. I do not understand how people publicly claiming to be concerned about my mental health can do these things to me in private.
Once my surgery is complete I’ll be back to 100% and looking forward to next season. Business gonna be BOOMIN!
There’s a lot to unpack there.
