The Pittsburgh Steelers signed wide receiver Antonio Brown to a very lucrative contract extension several weeks ago and one former player, who just so happens to be the franchises’ greatest player of all-time in the opinion of many people, probably wouldn’t have done that if it were him making the decisions.
In an interview with 93.7 The Fan, Steelers’ legend Joe Greene indicated that he would have likely let Brown go following his famous locker room Facebook Live video following the team’s playoff win over the Kansas City Chiefs.
“My first thought was, I would have to say goodbye,” Greene added with a slight chuckle, according to the station “but that’s me.”
Not only was Greene disappointed with Brown’s decision to stream the video, he said “those types of actions can’t be tolerated.”
As many of you already know, after Greene retired from coaching he 2004 he became a special assistant for pro and college personnel for general manager Kevin Colbert. He retired from that position in May of 2013, but as we saw last year around this time, still makes appearances at pro days near his home in Texas.
Greene will forever have an old-school mentality when it comes to the NFL and thus it’s not overly surprising to hear him say what he did about Brown. With that said, Brown has long since owned up to the mistake he made and appears ready to move past it.
Had the Steelers not extended Brown’s contract this past offseason after reportedly promising they would roughly a year ago, things probably would have gotten nasty as the wide receiver likely would have decided to hold out instead of playing in 2017, the final year of his old contract, for less than $5 million.
The only other alternative would have been to trade Brown and we learned early on in the offseason that the Steelers had no intentions of doing that.
You can hear Greene’s full interview below.
