It’s taken months, but finally Mike Evans is speaking about the December sideline incident involving former Bucs wide receiver Antonio Brown. During a victory over the Jets, Brown famously ripped off his equipment and left the sideline. Bucs head coach Bruce Arians and Brown have since offered different accounts of what happened. But last week, Evans’ version of events were in line with his head coach’s account.

Evans was asked by Yahoo Sports’ Matt Harmon to relay his memory of the Brown incident. The star receiver recalled the situation in detail, including the genesis of Brown’s frustration.

“What I remember is we were trying to get him to come back in the game,” Evans said. “He was saying he wanted the rock. And I mean, rightfully so. We should get him the rock. I mean, he’s an unbelievable player. But like, yo, come in the game, AB. So we’re asking him to come in the game. We’re on offense. And I’m like, ‘AB, big bro, come on. Let’s go in the game’. They’re calling for us, because me and him are both on the pitch count. Because we’re both coming back from injury. And so I’m trying to get him to come in the game. And he doesn’t come.

“So I go back on the drive. I do my two plays. I come out. And then I see BA still trying to get him to come in the game. And they had like a falling out somehow. AB goes off. And he’s about to take his pads off. I’m trying to grab his pads and tell him like, ‘yo, big bro’. Because me and him have a relationship.

“And I don’t want him to go out like this. Like we obviously we need him, so I’m telling him, ‘big bro, we need you’. The season’s almost over. If you don’t want to be here next year, you can leave. You know what I’m saying? Obviously I just didn’t want him to go out like that. So I’m telling him, please don’t go out like this. And they’re calling me to come back in the game. So I just left him alone.

“And then second, third down comes. We score on that drive. But then on TV timeout, we see that he was doing all that stuff. Taking his pads off, doing jumping jacks and shit. It was unfortunate. I didn’t know that it was going to go down like that. I mean, I thought we were going to have a chance to go to the playoffs and probably repeat. And he would have definitely helped us.”

Evans’ account of what happened is closely in line with Arians. He mentions that Brown was upset about not getting the ball enough in the first half. Unsurprisingly, Evans never mentions that Brown didn’t want to re-enter the game because of an injury. That’s what Brown claimed after the game. However, Evans does mention the Bucs had both he and Brown were on a pitch count so as not to over-exert themselves coming back from injuries.

Never forget, the greatest irony is that Brown had more targets than Evans and just one less than Gronkowski at halftime. Despite being on a snap count limitation due to his injury.

And of course, there is also this fact:

There was never really any doubt on the Pewter Report staff’s part. But now it seems clear that Brown was lying about Arians’ pushing him to play despite an injury. Imagine believing Brown’s story at any point in this process. Could not be us!

You can watch the entire Yahoo Sports interview with Evans right here.