A few days ago, Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette suggested that the Pittsburgh Steelers should trade wide receiver Antonio Brown instead of signing him to a long-term contract extension. In his article, Cook accused Brown of several on-the-field actions that he believed were detrimental to the team to support his opinion.
“The distractions are a real problem. Brown’s three excessive celebrations penalties early in the season were bad enough. But there was the incident in the first Miami game when he jogged back to the line of scrimmage, delaying his teammates from running their 2-minute offense,” wrote Cook. “In more than one game, when he wasn’t happy with how he was being used, he frequently ran the wrong patterns, either because of a lack of focus or — worse — intentionally. It happened a week ago in the AFC championship. That’s inexcusable.”
On Thursday, Brown, who is currently in Houston for Super Bowl LI, joined FS1’s “Undisputed” to set the record straight about him allegedly running the wrong routes on purpose.
“I know the position I’m in correlates things to be a lot bigger than what they should be. You guys in the media got a great responsibility. It’s your job to put out the truth because I have kids and people who watch the shows and what you say and take it to heart. I don’t think my reputation or how I relate to guys in the locker room or my play on the field ever should have been a question. We’re talking about a championship game that people don’t get a chance to experience over the course of our career. to say I wasn’t running the right route or to say that I was mad about us scoring a touchdown, that’s just disheartening,” Brown said.
“Who does that? As the media, it’s your job to tell the truth and give people fundamental facts of the reality of things. Sometimes those things can be misconstrued from being in the position I’m in and people just want to create stories.”
Brown, who is making the rounds on media row in Houston on Thursday, also stopped by for an interview with ESPN’s “First Take” to discuss all of the things that have transpired over the course of the last several weeks and especially since he shot his infamous Facebook Live video after the team’s Divisional Playoff game.
Brown was asked if he would like to remain in Pittsburgh and he made it clear that he does.
“Steelers for life,” Brown said without hesitation.
Earlier this week, Steelers team president Art Rooney II addressed Brown’s future in Pittsburgh and indicated that it is his hope that the wide receiver will be signed to a new long-term deal at some point during the offseason.
After this week is over and Brown leaves Houston, a lot of this noise surrounding his recent past transgressions and long-term future in Pittsburgh should lessen quite a bit. At least we hope it will.
https://youtu.be/h_gxyKpLHW8?list=PL6LKXOIuiUSmdK__7wVlwsfRFNAV74Hnz
