The battle between Antonio Brown and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just escalated quite a bit.
Days after Brown stripped off his pads and jersey and exited Sunday’s game against the New York Jets to leave MetLife Stadium, the receiver claimed in a statement that — per USA TODAY Sports — “he ‘relented to pressure directly from my coach to play’ through an ankle injury in Sunday’s game against the New York Jets.”
When asked about the injury, Bucs head coach Bruce Arians said on Monday that he didn’t know Brown was hurt.
“I don’t know that he was (injured),” Arians said, via USA TODAY Sports. “It was pretty obvious what happened. He left the field and that was it. We had a conversation and he left the field.”
On Thursday morning, Brown used Instagram Stories to post what he claimed were text messages between him and Arians before Sunday’s game, which would indicate the coach did know about the injury:
Antonio Brown has released his text messages with Bruce Arians: pic.twitter.com/OWlJiqYdEf
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) January 6, 2022
Bucs beat reporters, however, noted that everyone around the team knew Brown was injured ahead of the game. The issue, they say, is what Arians knew when the receiver walked off the sideline:
Antonio Brown has posted a text exchange w/ Bruce Arians. Arians said publicly he didn’t know if Brown was injured but said that in the context of the game and that moment. Everyone around the team knew Brown had been sidelined by an ankle injury, even missing practice that week. pic.twitter.com/rReOFwxaYU
— Greg Auman (@gregauman) January 6, 2022
Text exchange between Antonio Brown and Bruce Arians posted by AB on Instagram. Of course Arians knew Brown was injured. He hadn’t practiced since Wed. The dispute came on the sideline DURING the game after Brown had played the first half. BA said they never talked Post-game. pic.twitter.com/HuQ2JYwGoJ
— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) January 6, 2022
So what could this mean? Simply that this mess just got messier.
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