Antonio Brown has now told his side of the story of what happened on Sunday.
“I didn’t quit. I was cut. I didn’t walk away from my brothers. I was thrown out. … I could not make football plays on that ankle,” the seven-time Pro-Bowler said in a statement shared via his attorney Sean Burstyn (acquired by ESPN) on Wednesday.
In that statement Brown alleged Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians knew about and tried to make him play through a painful ankle injury that requires surgery. Even more, he also alleged the team had been giving him injections of a “powerful and sometimes dangerous painkiller” and Burstyn alleged it’s been the Bucs pushing the “mental health” narrative to Sunday’s events.
“I played until it was clear that I could not use my ankle to safely perform my playing responsibilities,” the statement read. “On top of that, the pain was extreme. I took a seat on the sideline and my coach came up to me, very upset, and shouted, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ … I told him ‘It’s my ankle.’ But he knew that. It was well-documented and we had discussed it.
“He then ordered me to get on the field. I said, ‘Coach, I can’t.’ He didn’t call for medical attention,” the statement continued. “Instead, he shouted at me, “YOU’RE DONE!’ while he ran his finger across his throat. Coach was telling me that if I don’t play hurt, then I was done with the Bucs.”
On Sunday, at the time Brown said he was cut from the team, the Bucs had been losing to the Jets. In the middle of the game, Brown, who was on the sideline, stripped off his jersey and pads, chucked his undershirt and gloves into the stands and trotted off the field and into the tunnel, waving at fans as he left.
Brown and his attorney are now trying to rectify any perception of his actions being some mental breakdown, something the Arians and the Bucs seemed to play out in press conferences after. Arians on Monday said “it was very hard” to see Brown act as he did on the sideline during the game, adding that he does “care about him.” As for taking off his jersey, Brown said he “did not want to wear their brand on my body.”
“I acknowledge my past,” Brown wrote — of his various indiscretions, Brown was most recently suspended three games this season for using a fake COVID vaccination card. “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. … Instead of asking how I felt, 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.”
Burstyn explained on his own Twitter account that the severity of Brown’s ankle injury was proven in an MRI scan taken Monday. In the scan, “a piece of loose bone” is seen “pressing into his ankle joint and a ligament snapped clean off the bone.” The attorney and Brown said recovery was possible with surgery.
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Brown injured his ankle back on Week 6 of the season and missed five games as a result. He re-aggravated his ankle Week 15 and did not practice the Thursday and Friday leading up to Sunday’s game at MetLife Stadium.
“We all know that the NFL does not condone the ordering of players in pain or at risk of serious injury to play,” Burstyn added. “Moreover, the injury and location of the visible bone fragment prevented Antonio Brown from being able to make the type of football moves that he is famous for… A team cannot and should never put a player at such risk. Conceal such conduct by writing him off as erratic is unlawful.
“After, the Bucs pushed our camp to claim that they did nothing wrong and suggested that we should say this event was purely the product of mental illness,” the attorney wrote. “Now they’re subjecting him to behind the scenes arbitrary gamesmanship. They cut him, now they cage him.”
Brown’s statement clarified that claim.
“Being fired on the sideline for having a painful injury was bad enough. Then came their ‘spin,'” he said. “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 were he clearly acknowledged my injury. He obviously knew I was on the injury list.
“And the GM [Jason Licht] after the game in text messages to my camp that I did tell coach about my ankle pain on Sunday.”
Arians has said twice publicly since Sunday’s game that Brown was “no longer a Buc” and Brown has twice thanked fans and the team for the time spent there. The Bucs, however, have not actually released him.
The Bucs have insisted on overseeing Brown’s ankle recovery, according to the statement. Brown said his recent MRI was urgent and read over by “two top orthopedic surgeons in NYC, including Dr. Martin O’Malley at Hospital for Special Surgery,” but that the Bucs wanted him to get a second opinion at the same hospital not knowing he already got an evaluation on his own.