Antonio Brown’s catch phrase used to be ‘chest up, eyes, up, prayed up’. That fell to the wayside with the rise of ‘business is boomin’’. But the dissolution of his relationship with the Pittsburgh Steelers has been good business for those who work in the sports media, which includes some of Brown’s former teammates, among them safety Ryan Clark.
Clark, who was already an aging, established veteran player by the time Brown came in as a sixth-round underclassman in 2010, has been one of the most frequent and most vocal commenters regarding the All-Pro wide receiver throughout the situation, and in fact helped to lay the groundwork for coloring his character profile.
After Clark related a story from the 2012 season just as Brown was getting a new contract that characterized the receiver as hinting at his current behavior, the wide receiver went on the offensive, attacking the safety and calling him an Uncle Tom.
That hasn’t slowed Clark down, and he weighed in yet again after Brown met with team president Art Rooney II, in which it was evidently agreed upon that the two parties should go their separate ways. “It’s kind of strange that this thing has just played out so long, and that it’s been such a lengthy soap opera from a team we aren’t used to seeing these things from”, he said.
“You start the season with Le’Veon Bell and now end it with Antonio Brown, it’s really been a strange season in Western Pennsylvania”, Clark went on during his phone interview into the Rich Eisen Show. “So you mention AB, I don’t know who’s doing a worse job of selling themselves to teams right now, AB or AD, Anthony Davis right here in New Orleans. And so for me, to kind of see that Antonio’s trying to force the hand of the Pittsburgh Steelers—he’s now speaking about Ben, he’s speaking about Mike, he’s doing some things that I don’t necessarily think help his trade value, but it may be forcing the organization who doesn’t want to be involved in this type of drama to make a make that he wants them to make”.
The day before the meeting, Brown went on social media and talked about wanting guaranteed money from his next team, as well as a number of things, adopting the nickname of Mr. Big Chest for himself.
“Is that something that you want to invite into your locker room? Is that something that you want to taint the chemistry of what you have going on?”, Clark asked. “There are going to be a lot of things that go into acquiring Antonio Brown that don’t just include his play on the field.
“He is tailing off. There is a three in front of his age now”, he pointed out. “If you get Antonio Brown, you have to believe that you’re one wide receiver away from winning the Super Bowl”.
