On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Bucs finally released WR Antonio Brown. In doing so, they also released a statement confirming the move, as well as responding to a statement from Brown last night.
The team says that Brown never informed them at any point during the Jets game that he could not play. They also added that he has not complied with them multile this week to schedule an evaluation at an orthopedic specialist.
“The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have terminated the contract of Antonio Brown, effective immediately,” the Bucs said in a statement.
“While Antonio did receive treatment on his ankle and was listed on the injury report the week leading up to last Sunday’s game, he was cleared to play by our medical team prior to the start of the game and at no point during the game did he indicate to our medical personnel that he could not play. We have attempted, multiple times throughout this week, to schedule an evaluation by an outside orthopedic specialist, yet Antonio has not complied. Maintaining the health and wellness of our players is of the utmost importance to our organization.”
The team has not responded to the text messages Brown sent out Thursday, which will likely garner a response from Bruce Arians when he speaks to reporters today.
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Brown appeared to try to prove the point that Arians was aware of his injury. He previously claimed Arians told him “you’re done” after Brown said he was too injured to play on Sunday. In a separate message Thursday, Brown alleged that his teammates “knew nothing about [his] talks with coach [Arians] last week.”
“Don’t get it twisted. My brothers have been good to me. From Tom to practice squad, we were a top-level unit. They have been good to me and knew nothing about my talks with coach last week. The team mishandled this situation. They let me down and, more importantly, my teammates,” Brown posted Thursday on Twitter.
In a press conference Monday, Arians told reporters that Brown did not inform him about the injury on game day.
He has a lot of explaining to do after these released text messages.
