The Pittsburgh Steelers are out of Latrobe and back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, also referred to as the South Side Facility. We are already into the regular season, where everything is magnified and, you know, actually counts. The team is working through the highs and lows and dramas that go through a typical Steelers season.
How are the rookies performing? What about the players that the team signed in free agency? Who is missing time with injuries, and when are they going to be back? What are the coaches saying about what they are going to do this season that might be different from how it was a year ago?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: What did Antonio Brown’s ‘Good Business’ Tweet mean?
For the first time since the season ended we were given the opportunity to hear from Steelers president Art Rooney II yesterday, who spoke to reporters from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette concerning the status of Antonio Brown, who has not been in contact with the team via any official channels since their season ended.
Rooney was pretty clear in his statements, though I feel also slightly misinterpreted. While he shut the door on the idea of the team releasing him, I think his quote about not envisioning Brown being on the team in August has been oversold, because he was speaking of right now, knowing full well things can change over the next two months.
Following Rooney’s words filtering out into the internet airwaves, Brown seemingly ‘responded’ to the interview by posting an image of himself shaking hands with the team’s owner, captioning it “Good Business #Boomin”.
I’m going to go ahead and admit that I didn’t bother to verify the source of the image, I’m going to assume that it was taken after it was announced that Brown had signed his big four-year $17 million per season extension in 2017.
So what did he mean by ‘good business’? Is he saying that the Steelers are a team that does good business? That Art Rooney II is a good businessman? That it’s good business to be a part of the Steelers? Or merely that he got business out of the team?
Many of interpreted the post as something like an olive branch, perhaps the first sign of the two sides reaching a reconciliation. Others have interpreted it as him suggesting that there’s still more ‘business’ ahead for him, or that he wants more money—or another employer.
I’m inclined to lean toward the former, but we don’t really have any way of knowing for sure without clarification. How do you interpret the post?
