Antonio Brown saga continues to take wild twists that make everyone look bad

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The Antonio Brown exit from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was admittedly bizarre even before an online model influencer told the Daily Mail the receiver helped sneak her into his room at the team’s New Jersey hotel the night before that fateful game against the New York Jets, even though it broke team rules and NFL COVID-19 protocols.

That is the least surprising part of this saga to me because NFL players have been sneaking women into their rooms or been sneaking out of their rooms after curfew since before Vince Lombardi.

Except back then, the women didn’t share text messages of the shenanigans to the nearest online media platform they could find to increase their following.

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As for the rest of this divorce between Brown and the Buccaneers — involving lawyers representing the team, the NFL and Brown, and calling into question the veracity of an NFL Super Bowl-winning head coach, the reputation of the game’s most successful quarterback, and the wisdom of all involved — has turned us into rubberneckers who cannot turn away from this train wreck.

I am as guilty as anyone, I admit, of following the events as if they were installments to a primetime soap opera.

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown arrives courtside during the second half of an NBA basketball game between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Brooklyn Nets, Monday, Jan. 3, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)

And I come away after watching all the episodes feeling only sadness for Brown.

I come away glad I’m not him.

The whole series leaves me hopeful he’ll get help but doubting he ever will because people like that online influencer, some media, teammates, lawyers and, yes, NFL teams continue to empower Brown and his neurotic act.

That act in the last few days has included Brown requesting contract guarantees for incentives he was likely to earn had he played as he is capable.

But when the Buccaneers declined to alter Brown’s contract to meet his demands, there was coincidently an ankle injury that kept Brown out of practice last Thursday and Friday.

On Friday afternoon, Brown and Bucs coach Bruce Arians texted about playing in the Sunday Jets game and everyone seemed agreed on the idea, with the coach telling Brown he wanted him and Brown telling Arians he was getting right to be able to play.

We know this because Brown released the text exchange on social media as a way of exposing and/or embarrassing Arians, who had said the day after the game, "I don’t know that he was (injured)."

The texts Brown released, by the way, were indeed Arians’.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians questions an officials call against the Atlanta Falcons during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Mark LoMoglio)

"You’re talking about the ones with the little heart on them? Yeah, that was me," Arians said Thursday.

And let’s be clear here: Brown has a history of saying one thing and doing another, for being both a contributor and a detriment to teams, even for lying because he served a league suspension this season for falsifying his COVID-19 vaccine document.

But amid all that, he is also capable of speaking the truth.

That’s something that makes this entire episode so confusing because both Brown and the Bucs, as represented by Arians, are giving their accounts to events they saw through their prism.

And the accounts are different. But there’s obviously some truth in both of them, even when they contradict the other’s version of events.

The events: On Sunday the defending Super Bowl champions found themselves in a surprisingly tough game against a Jets team that had lost 11 of 15 games.

The Jets were leading 17-10 at halftime and Brown was angry he was targeted three times in the first half. So he apparently had a locker room meltdown about it.

"We got that calmed down," Arians said. "The players took care of that."

The embers from that moment were still smoldering in the third quarter, and this is where the heat of the moment during a frustrating game and Brown’s past history with the Bucs and other teams led to an explosion.

"We called for the personnel group that he had played in the entire game, and he refused to go into the game," Arians said Thursday. "That’s when I looked back and saw him basically wave off the coach.

"I then went back and approached him about what was going on. ‘I ain’t playing.’ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘I ain’t getting the ball.'"

If Mike Evans had had this meltdown, Arians 100 percent throws his arm around him and calms him down. But this is AB, of whom the coach previous said, "He screws up one time, he’s gone."

Brown, on the other hand, clearly does not handle pressure situations very well and does not have an awareness about his status on the team. You’re not Pittsburgh Steelers Antonio Brown anymore, fella. Those Pro Bowl days and times when Mike Tomlin deftly managed you and kept your diva inclinations out of the news are gone.

You’ve been cast off the Steelers.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (12) and wide receiver Antonio Brown (81) celebrate a touchdown pass during the first half of an NFL wild-card playoff football game against the Washington Football Team, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021, in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Been cast off the Raiders.

Been cast off the Patriots.

Would a three-time castoff who is thinking logically and in control of his emotions throw a tantrum in the Bucs’ locker room at halftime because he’s not getting the football?

This all played out during an emotional period of time for Arians and Brown in front of an entire team.

"That’s when I said, ‘You’re done. Get the F outta here.’ That’s the end of it," Arians said.

Not the end of it. Not yet, even if the Bucs wish it was. Brown ripped off his shirt and hopped and ran off the field because, he says, he no longer wished to be wearing the Bucs colors on his back.

That departure and Brown’s desire to get more passes thrown his way, thus get more action on the field, call into question his insistence that he’s nursing a serious ankle injury.

Arians, meanwhile, looks bad because on Monday he suggested Brown simply left the field after a conversation on the sideline.

"We had a conversation and he left the field," Arians said.

We now understand Arians ordered Brown to "get the F outta here."

Totally different feel between those two accounts from the coach.

That doesn’t excuse what Brown, apparently willing to burn every available bridge, did on Sunday and then did Thursday morning when he posted on Instagram a text exchange in which he asked Alex Guerrero, Tom Brady’s longtime friend and trainer, for a refund on $100,000 because the two weren’t working together as planned.

Guerrero responds kindly and asks Brown to let him know where to send the balance due back to Brown.

But Brown tagged Brady, linking Guerrero to Brady as his "guy" and adds, "how u even work with people like this."

Brown is clearly trying to slime Guerrero and Brady by extension when indeed the exchange makes him look awful because Brady has been one of his most vocal advocates and was the primary reason the Buccaneers signed him last year.

Brown later deleted that unfortunate post.

Brown is not winning here. Neither is Arians.

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The Buccaneers meanwhile are getting all they deserve. They signed a player known for being a headache and this week he turned into their migraine.

But was it all worthwhile?

Antonio Brown helped Tampa Bay make its Super Bowl winning run last postseason. Think about that sentence when you wonder why NFL teams keep taking the risk of signing Antonio Brown.