As the saga continues to unfold after the Bucs released Antonio Brown on Thursday, more information is starting to develop. And it’s not just one issue. There are numerous events in all different areas.
Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who tweeted that he spoke with Bucs general manager Jason Licht, he proclaims that Brown requested last week to have his remaining $2 million incentives guaranteed by the end of the season. However, the Bucs declined.
Last week, Antonio Brown and his agent requested that the remaining $2 million in incentives in his contract for this season be guaranteed, per Bucs’ GM Jason Licht. The team declined to guarantee those incentives.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
This may have been the beginning of Brown’s unruly feeling about the organization.
But wait, there’s more.
Brown put out a statement through his lawyer, Sean Burstyn, about a number of accusations that Tampa Bay forced him to play injured. Brown also claims that he saw an independent doctor that proved with an MRI that he had significant damage, while the Bucs ordered him to see an additional doctor for another opinion.
You can read that here:
A lengthy statement from Antonio Brown, announcing he’s having ankle surgery and giving his side of Sunday: pic.twitter.com/pPl0X5HQsx
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 6, 2022
On the contrary, Licht told Schefter that the Bucs went out of their way to help get Brown appointments in New York since he was still there. As it turns out, Brown wasn’t answering their calls.
Buccaneers made what they call “reasonable accommodations” to bring this matter to a close early this week if in fact Antonio Brown had an injury from the game and the wide receiver declined to cooperate, per Jason Licht.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
The Bucs put out a public statement following their move to release the troubled receiver, saying that they asked Brown for said medical records, which he could not provide.
— xz – Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) January 6, 2022
And if that wasn’t enough, Licht told Schefter that Brown was unhappy with the number of targets he was receiving in the game, which Bruce Arians also mentioned on Thursday during a press conference.
For the record, Brown had five targets by halftime of last week’s game. That was one off from Rob Gronkowski’s team-lead of six and one more than Mike Evans had. This also comes off of a game just two weeks ago in which Brown got 15 targets, made 10 receptions and recorded 101 yards at Carolina.
One other note to this saga, per Bucs’ sources: At halftime of Sunday’s game against the Jets, Antonio Brown was agitated about not getting the targets he was expecting during the game and had to be calmed down.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 6, 2022
Arians mentioned as such when he clarified the situation on Thursday.
#Bucs HC Bruce Arians Pt. 4: "was going on. ‘I ain’t playing.’ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘I ain’t getting the ball.’ That’s when I said ‘’You’re done, get the F out of here.’ And that’s the end of it. We’re working on Carolina, that’s the end of the story. Hopefully it ends today."
— PewterReport (@PewterReport) January 6, 2022
It seems like there’s a new piece of information at each moment in this incident. So this likely won’t be the last thing to come about.