Antonio Brown was one of the most electric football players in NFL history throughout his nine seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. As a sixth-round draft pick in 2010, he had an uphill battle to see playing time and eventually earn the full-time starting job. By his second season, he had over 1,000 yards receiving and by his third season, he was the full-time starter on the outside.
In his second season, with 1,108 receiving yards, he only started three games, which is pretty unusual given his stats. Why wasn’t he given the starting job sooner given his production? He cleared some things up as a guest on the most recent episode of The Pivot Podcast.
“Ryan Clark know my relationship with Bruce Arians. How many years you know Bruce Arians to hold me back?” Brown said, with Clark saying, “It was a while.”
“Ben Roethlisberger the only reason I even started starting for the Steelers,” Brown said. “Literally, he had to go tell Bruce Arians like, ‘Yo, I need AB at the X. Let me have him run these plays.'”
Brown was telling this story to give context to his infamous mid-game exit as a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when he ripped off his jersey and pads, waved goodbye to the fans, and left the field.
It is interesting to hear of his history with Arians, given that he signed with the Buccaneers in 2020 with Arians the head coach. It is also interesting to hear that Roethlisberger needed to make Brown’s case for him to become as a full-time starter on offense. He had already established himself as a favorite target of Roethlisberger’s with 74 targets over the first nine games in the 2011 season before he received his first start.
Perhaps it is no big surprise that the Steelers moved on from Arians as their offensive coordinator after the 2011 season with Antonio Brown clearly proving he deserved a bigger role.
They also had Hines Ward, Mike Wallace, and Emmanuel Sanders on the roster, so it was no big surprise that a young sixth-round pick had to wait his turn to start. The relationship between Brown and Roethlisberger turned sour around the time Brown requested a trade, but both parties have since expressed regret about the way everything went down. In a previous interview, Brown said he “never realized how good I had it,” while Roethlisberger has said he hopes the two can reconnect.
Brown went on to rewrite the record books for the Steelers, amassing 837 receptions for 11,207 receiving yards, and 74 receiving touchdowns in one of the most dominant eight-year stretches from a WR that the NFL has ever seen.
