The Pittsburgh Steelers recently gave out jersey numbers to all of their new incoming free agents and Cordarrelle Patterson, who has worn No. 84 his entire career, is going to retain that number with the Steelers. The number was last worn in the regular season by WR Antonio Brown, who already voiced some displeasure with his number being reissued on social media last night. “May have to retire a Raider,” he said, taking issue with his number being reissued.
He is now taking it a step further and saying that he will come back to play for free if the Steelers will give him No. 86, which is of course Hines Ward’s number and has not been worn since 2011 when he retired. More or less, he is trying to get the message across that if his number is being reissued, then why can’t someone like Ward’s be reissued, too.
“I’ll come back and play for Steelers for FREE this season if I can get #86,” Brown wrote. “Since Jersey # don’t matter much should not be a big deal.”
There is at least some reported tension between the two storied Steelers WRs, as back in 2017, when Ward was serving as a coaching intern with the Steelers, he was in line to get the WR coaching job. According to Aditi Kinkhabwala multiple years after the fact, it didn’t happen because Ward wanted to hold everyone accountable equally and Brown was already operating under his own set of rules in Pittsburgh.
Brown would likely be held in that same regard as Ward in Pittsburgh if it wasn’t for the unfortunate string of events that saw him traded away. It wasn’t a pretty breakup in the least, and most of his actions since being traded away have not reflected well on him, either. His on-field production is no doubt in line with some of the best WRs of all time, but the Steelers are a family organization and part of his legacy, at least in Pittsburgh, was diminished due to the off-field actions.
