Earlier Tuesday, the PPG’s Ed Bouchette reported wide receiver Antonio Brown failed to show up to the team facility Monday afternoon for team meetings and film review. At his weekly press conference, Mike Tomlin confirmed Brown didn’t show up.
While Tomlin wouldn’t address the matter any further, he declined to say if it was an excused absence or not. The fact that he didn’t implies Brown missing was not excused or planned by the team.
“He was not,” Tomlin said when asked if Brown reported yesterday. “I’m looking forward to visiting him today and discussing that and some other things. Not going to get into the details of why he wasn’t here, whether he was excused and all those things. I’m going to leave those things in-house.”
Tomlin went on to say while he understands the frustration, the response to that feeling is the most important element.
“I understand sometimes you got some negativity. We lost the football game, there was some negative exchanges on the sideline. Frustration associated with not playing well and not winning. I understand all that. There’s opportunities for us to respond to that.”
Tomlin did, however, confirm that Brown has not been asked to be traded, as he wrote on Twitter in response to criticism Monday afternoon. That, unfortunately, seems to be the closest Brown got to anything football-related yesterday.
Ben Roethlisberger was asked about Brown during his weekly radio spot on 93.7 The Fan with Ron Cook and Joe Starkey. Specifically, his confrontation with offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner.
“I think it was just frustration,” Ben said. “He is a competitor and he wants to be the best in the world. And he probably is the best in the world. He wants to make every play and catch every ball and every touchdown. Which is what every great guy wants to do, make every play. I think he was just getting frustrated. I think he took it out on some people.”
Roethlisberger also agreed that he doesn’t believe Brown wants to be traded.
“I don’t think he wants traded. I’ll speak to him tomorrow…I think he enjoys being here.”
While that may still be true, Brown clearly has had a very unhappy last 48 hours.
UPDATE (1:29 PM): Brown’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, issued a statement that in part, said Brown’s camp had talked to the team about missing yesterday.
