NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown is firing back at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians following the viral video showing Brown ripping off his uniform and leaving the field during the game on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022.
In an unprecedented spectacle captured by a fan, AB is shown taking off his shoulder pads, jersey and gloves and flinging them on the bench and into the crowd. He then hopped and jogged to the tunnel shirtless while waving to the crowd on the way out.
😳 Tampa Bay Bucs WR Antonio Brown strips his jersey and pads off in frustration and walks off shirtless #antoniobrown quits on the #Bucs out of frustration pic.twitter.com/gUSHzClZKM
— Jeff Skversky (@JeffSkversky) January 2, 2022
The head coach told the media after the game that he ordered Brown into the game twice and, when AB refused, Arian ordered him off the field, prompting Brown’s embarrassing exit.
Now Brown has returned with his lawyer to explain that Arian tried to make him play on a badly injured ankle.
“Coach was telling me that if I didn’t play hurt, I was done with the Bucs,” Brown claimed in a statement that he and his attorney posted online. Arian basically “threw me out like an animal,” Brown added.
“Because of my commitment to the game, I relented to pressure directly from my coach to play injured,” Brown’s statement reads, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Statement from Antonio Brown via his attorney @seanburstyn: pic.twitter.com/pJ3VGFBjSy
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
“Despite the pain, I suited up, the staff injected me with what I now know was a powerful and sometimes dangerous painkiller that the NFLPA has warned against using, and I gave it my all for the team. I played until it was clear that I could not use my ankle to safely perform my playing responsibilities,” he continued.
“On top of that, the pain was extreme. I took a seat on the sideline and my coach came up to me, very upset, and shouted, ‘What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you?’ I told him, ‘It’s my ankle.’ But he knew that. It was well-documented and we had discussed it. He then ordered me to get on the field,” Brown explained.
“I said, ‘Coach, I can’t.’ He didn’t call for medical attention. Instead, he shouted at me, ‘YOU’RE DONE!’ while he ran his finger across his throat. Coach was telling me that if I didn’t play hurt, then I was done with the Bucs.”
Brown continued: “As part of their ongoing cover-up, they are acting like I wasn’t cut and now demanding that I see a doctor of their choice to examine my ankle. What they did not know until now is that on Monday morning I had an urgent MRI on my ankle. It shows broken bone fragments stuck in my ankle, the ligament torn from the bone, and cartilage loss, which are beyond painful.”
Flip the page to see that Brown also released private messages between himself and the training staff regarding his injured ankle.
