Antonio Brown made headlines on Sunday afternoon when he left the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. And it looks like the reason for his exit has been revealed. Jay Glazer of Fox Sports was told by Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians that Brown refused to return to the game in the second half when he was told to. On Instagram Monday, Brown sarcastically revealed why he left during the middle of the game. On his Instagram Story, he uploaded a photo of himself in his pre-game outfit and captioned it, “I knew the game was still going I left cause I’m super gremlin.” “Super gremlin” is a reference to a Kodak Black song of the same name.
But Ian Rappoport of the NFL Network said that Brown felt he was too injured to return to the game. “What he told the staff, from what I understand, is that he was not going into the game because, in his mind, he did not feel he was healthy,” Rapoport said on Good Morning Football. “The response then from the offensive coaches and from Bruce Arians was, ‘If you are not gonna go into the game when we tell you to go into the game, then you cannot be here.’ At that point, they threw him off the sidelines and then cut him from the team.”
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Brown left during the third quarter of the Buccaneers’ game against the New York Jets. As the star wide receiver left the field, he stripped his gear off and threw his shirt to the ground before waiving and jumping in the end zone. Brown did not fly back to Tampa with the team, and Arians said that Brown is no longer a member of the team.
After the game, Tom Brady shared his thoughts on the Brown situation. “Yeah, I mean that’s obviously a difficult situation, and I think we all want him to — I think everybody should hopefully do what they can to help him in ways that he really needs it,” said Brady. “We all love him, we care about him deeply. We want to see him be at his best, and unfortunately, it won’t be with our team. We have a lot of friendships that will last and again I think the most important thing about football are the relationships with your friends and your teammates and they go beyond the field. I think everyone should be very compassionate and empathetic toward some very difficult things that are happening.”
Brown originally joined the Buccaneers last season and helped the team win a Super Bowl. He re-signed with Tampa Bay before the start of the 2021 season and caught 42 passes for 545 yards and four touchdowns in seven games this year.
