Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown threw a temper tantrum of sorts during Sunday’s win over the Baltimore Ravens after quarterback Ben Roethlisberger didn’t throw him the football in the second quarter when he was wide-open on a third down play.
While a lot of Browns teammates have since brushed that tantrum off as it just being a result of the wide receiver’s passion for the game and him just wanting to help the team win, Roethlisberger publicly reprimanded his wide receiver during his Tuesday morning interview on 93.7 The Fan.
“He got upset because he was open, which I can understand,” Roethlisberger explained. “Sometimes that happens. I think I was disappointed because it’s not like I intentionally missed him. It’s not like I didn’t intentionally throw it to him. I was doing what my reads tell me to do. I don’t even want to say I made a mistake, because I was reading the side I was supposed to read.”
During his sideline tantrum, Brown didn’t want anyone to talk to him after he threw the Gatorade cooler and that includes offensive coordinator Todd Haley. Roethlisberger was asked about that chain of events on Tuesday.
“Yeah, we all tried to talk to him and it didn’t help and I think it’s bad in a sense because we’ve got a lot of young guys that see that too,” Roethlisberger said. JuJu’s sitting right next to him looking at that. And what’s JuJu thinking? Is he thinking it’s ok to act that way? I don’t know. And he’s a veteran guy, he’s been on this team a long time. I know he’s passionate about the game and we love that passion.
“A.B is the best receiver in the world, maybe one of the best to ever play the game and I’d like to think that him and I together maybe are one of the best quarterback-wide receiver combos that have ever played the game. So, I don’t know that he needs to react that way. I mean, he’s super-human on the football field and when that happens, it almost brings him back to being a mere mortal, if you will, because it gets in his head and it just messes with all of us a little bit.”
Instead of throwing a tantrum, Roethlisberger said Tuesday he wishes that Brown would just talk to him instead.
It’s unfortunate that he reacted that way,” Roethlisberger said. “I know that he’s a competitor and he wants the ball, but all of us are competitors. We all want the ball, we all want to make plays. I told him on the sideline, ‘A.B. just come talk to me, ask me what happened. Tell me that you were open.’ If that was Heath Miller, I’d probably ask Heath on the sideline, ‘Hey Heath were you open?’ He would probably tell me, no, because he wouldn’t want you to feel bad. That’s just who he was and I wish he would have just come talk to me and tell me, ‘Hey Ben, I killed him on this play.’ That goes a lot further than throwing a temper tantrum.
Roethlisberger also added that he’s since talked to Brown about what happened.
“I’m not trying to call A.B. out, but I just think this is causing a distraction that none of us really need” Roethlisberger said.
