Antonio NOW Officially Released.

[King Bootz]

Here are the things I'm interested in.

Did the Bucs training staff truly inject his ankle with a painkiller the NFLPA has warned against? If so, what exactly is the warning?

Does he in fact need surgery?

That's all I really care about. I don't care about AB or BA looking like clowns. They do that themselves.

[Snake]

They hit him with toradol, right? NFL would probably cease to function without that stuff.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2 ... radol-use/

[uscbucsfan]

They hit him with toradol, right? NFL would probably cease to function without that stuff.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2 ... radol-use/

Yes. They likely did. I think it was Romo who said at the end of the season there's not a player on the team without some toradol in them.

[uscbucsfan]

There was already speculation that he'd need surgery, too. So both are likely true.

Most injuries can be healed quicker with surgery.

[Snake]

Yeah, that’s where I’m sensing some dishonesty in that AB statement. Implying the use Toradol means he was too hurt to even play. As you said, that means nobody is healthy enough to play. Which is a separate question entirely.

Also, interpreting Arians’s “you’re done” statement to mean he was cut from the team. And the throat slash. Maybe Arians was being crazy. Maybe Antonio Brown has been a legitimate cancer for the last two months and Arians was tired of it all. Maybe Arians was freaking out about the fact that his wide receiver room is wrecked and made a poor choice of words and gestures in frustration.

A lot of what if‘s. could’ve been prevented with two grown men just being better.

Maybe none of this happens if Godwin stays healthy. Bah.


Edit:
There is needing surgery, and then there’s needing surgery. I think about that foot injury Quenton Nelson had fixed before the season. It probably could’ve waited. He played with it for years. He decided to get it fixed when Carson Wentz found a good surgeon who did his. Not a surgeon myself
So I Couldn’t tell you about AB’s situation. It sounds bad. It apparently felt bad enough for a 10+ year veteran to think he was hurting himself even more playing.

[Buccabeer]

Even if it's bullshit, AB seems to be winning in the court of public opinion on social media, which is wild to me.

I dont really care if no one is suspended this year and we win...

He's not winning in the court of public opinion. First, the sports media loves this. IF AB is just nuts this goes away and there's nothing to talk about. But, what if there was a conspiracy??? We can get 3-4 days out of this. Then AB and his Team send out a few Tweets. It's all one sided and those who don't want to believe that AB is a liar and his cryptic messages to everyone is Truth of a cover up; will respond in his favor. The Bucs are going through the process, I'm not sure why this is difficult to understand. Do you think AB was suspended by the NFL overnight?

Yes, it would have been better for BA to say No Comment 100 times as it relates to AB. But, that's what you get with BA, he says what is true on his mind, there's no other motive. AB wasn't playing another down for the Bucs, and hindsight says he should have been dismissed after he lied to the NFL and his teammates. But, he got his 15th chance and F'd that up too and people want to defend him because he had an ankle injury. OK, go with that I guess. Maybe Mike Evans, Vita Vea, AWJ, and every other freakin Buc who has an injury shouldn't have been playing.

I'll just sit back and wait for that idiot to implode one more time so everyone will come back to sanity.

[King Bootz]

Snake, you saying the Godwin injury forced OBP to rush him back? I could believe that. I had long been skeptical of him playing on that deltoid sprain. That's not a 6 week injury. Most require surgery and they can all get worse without it.

[ATrain]

So if BA did essentially cut AB on the sidelines over not playing due to a known and apparently severe injury, does that in any way minimize the negative view of ABs response?

If it's true, then I understand him getting pissed, but he still went way over the top. He could've handled himself like a man in control, peacefully went to get locker room, then release this statement. If he doesn't have the public in his corner now, he'd for sure have it then.

But unfortunately there's a decent chance that both Arians and AB showed their ugly side on Sunday and made a circus out of what should be a serious Super Bowl contending team.

[Buccabeer]

Snake, you saying the Godwin injury forced OBP to rush him back? I could believe that. I had long been skeptical of him playing on that deltoid sprain. That's not a 6 week injury. Most require surgery and they can all get worse without it.

Yet, amazing how good he looked against the Panthers.

[Snake]

Snake, you saying the Godwin injury forced OBP to rush him back? I could believe that. I had long been skeptical of him playing on that deltoid sprain. That's not a 6 week injury. Most require surgery and they can all get worse without it.

I believe that’s probably what happened. AB came back in week 16. The week after Godwin got hurt. AB played 79% of snaps and received 15 targets that week. After being limited in practice that entire week.

Then this past week. He didn’t practice at all. Was questionable for the game.

[Buccabeer]

So if BA did essentially cut AB on the sidelines over not playing due to a known and apparently severe injury, does that in any way minimize the negative view of ABs response?

If it's true, then I understand him getting pissed, but he still went way over the top. He could've handled himself like a man in control, peacefully went to get locker room, then release this statement. If he doesn't have the public in his corner now, he'd for sure have it then.

But unfortunately there's a decent chance that both Arians and AB showed their ugly side on Sunday and made a circus out of what should be a serious Super Bowl contending team.

ATrain, I'll give you this, BA should have handled it better, no doubt. But, you have to think he was done with AB for a while now and that was the straw that broke his back. BA doesn't care if AB hates him, but he was crapping on his teammates and I respect BA for telling him to go $#%@ himself.

[Snake]

Snake, you saying the Godwin injury forced OBP to rush him back? I could believe that. I had long been skeptical of him playing on that deltoid sprain. That's not a 6 week injury. Most require surgery and they can all get worse without it.

Yet, amazing how good he looked against the Panthers.

DeJuan Blair played in the NBA for years while missing both ACLs. Don’t underestimate what an injured person can do.

AB believed playing was deleterious to his body, even if he was doing it well. Pain is the norm for NFL players. Tolerating pain is an entry barrier to high-level football. AB seemingly clocked this pain as indicative that something was wrong. And apparently he was right.

Edit:
To make it coherent

[Nano]

He laid out some things that should be easily verifiable within the next week(from the throat slash, to audio, to the MRI, to the text messages). If this turned out to be mostly true, then this could be an insanely bad PR hit for both the Bucs and Arians. Have to imagine that Arians would not be here next season in that case. He'd become the fall guy for this.

AB may have set the motion for us to turn back into the Yucks.

[Buccabeer]

Yet, amazing how good he looked against the Panthers.

DeJuan Blair played in the NBA for years while missing both ACLs. Don’t underestimate what an injured person can do.

AB believed playing was deleterious to his body, even if he was doing it well. Pain is the norm for NFL players. Tolerating pain is an entry barrier to high-level football. AB seemingly clocked this pain as indicative that something was wrong. And apparently he was right.

Edit:
To make it coherent

Ok, so he did what he wanted to do and what many NFL Players do. Therefore, this is not a Buc Organizational issue who made him play on an injury. At best, this is yet another issue with the NFL and protection of players health.

[Snake]

DeJuan Blair played in the NBA for years while missing both ACLs. Don’t underestimate what an injured person can do.

AB believed playing was deleterious to his body, even if he was doing it well. Pain is the norm for NFL players. Tolerating pain is an entry barrier to high-level football. AB seemingly clocked this pain as indicative that something was wrong. And apparently he was right.

Edit:
To make it coherent

Ok, so he did what he wanted to do and what many NFL Players do. Therefore, this is not a Buc Organizational issue who made him play on an injury. At best, this is yet another issue with the NFL and protection of players health.

I don’t disagree with that. The NFL has a culture and the interpersonal dysfunction that took place on the sidelines is making typical NFL culture seem like a Bucs/Arians specific problem.

If Brown accepts Arians’s tongue lashing, he gets an MRI after the game and gets put on the IR. He motherfucks Arians for the rest of time to those close to him and that’s that. If Arians doesn’t go crazy, he does not give Antonio Brown an opportunity to escalate.

Arians then opens his mouth post game (surprise surprise) and invites controversy before things can get sorted out.

They both mess up repeatedly and it’s completely predictable.

[Babeinbucland]

Brown’s statement

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/330 ... neers-game

[mdb1958]

What's obvious is AB knew he was needed back and I think he wanted to come back. It showed against the Panthers and he was loving it. So something happened between the Panther game where he said he will give it his all and 26 plays into the Jets game.
I still think he was upset that he only got five targets in 26 plays. In other words he's playing hurt to get the ball not to be out there being a decoy.

It's an opinion and could very easily be wrong.

It's unfortunate all the way around.

[Snake]

Who hijacked your account mdb

[13F11B]

If Brown had not had issues with the Steelers, Raiders, and Patriots before the issue with the Buccaneers. If Brown had not been caught lying about his vaccination status and obtaining a fake vaccination card. If Brown had not had all the issues with women, chefs, etc.

Then maybe I would take what Brown is saying with less skepticism. However, Brown has done all those things. He has lied in the past. He has done amazingly stupid things in the past. This causes me to have a healthy amount of skepticism about his claims. Perhaps he is telling the truth. Perhaps he realizes he made a man-child mistake and truly made an ass of himself and he is trying to cover that up as he has in the past. I do not know.

As a fan of the Buccaneers, I would like to see the drama stop and the team be able to focus on the rest of the season.

[mdb1958]

Who hijacked your account mdb

It also could be said that all though the Panther game where it looked like he could have reinjured his ankle he didnt show it, nor did he in the Jets game. Something happened to his attitude somewhere around his last play and then onto the sidelines. Something made him think nope can't do it I'm done.

I'm pissed
and
nobody can talk to me like that.

[mdb1958]

If Brown had not had issues with the Steelers, Raiders, and Patriots before the issue with the Buccaneers. If Brown had not been caught lying about his vaccination status and obtaining a fake vaccination card. If Brown had not had all the issues with women, chefs, etc.

Then maybe I would take what Brown is saying with less skepticism. However, Brown has done all those things. He has lied in the past. He has done amazingly stupid things in the past. This causes me to have a healthy amount of skepticism about his claims. Perhaps he is telling the truth. Perhaps he realizes he made a man-child mistake and truly made an ass of himself and he is trying to cover that up as he has in the past. I do not know.

As a fan of the Buccaneers, I would like to see the drama stop and the team be able to focus on the rest of the season.

Who were you before 13F11B?

[Moozician]

Who hijacked your account mdb

Methinks mdb discovered Grammarly...

[Doctor]

I think both of their reactions could have been better, of course. But you're losing to a shit team and emotions are high. Got away from them. AB far worse. He could've just pulled a cam on the sideline or gone right to the tunnel and settled it afterwards. Would be a much better look for him when he hit the market. Whether or not Bruce would've actually cut him after the game, who knows, prob not once things were calmer. But it's probably all moot if he needs surgery anyways so...

Bruce thought AB was quitting. AB thought Bruce cut him right then and there. Both dudes with high emotions at the moment. And honestly the outbursts were hardly what people are hyping them up to be.

At no point do I actually believe Bruce was trying to make AB play hurt, goes against literally everything everyone has ever said about him. Not to mention that'd make NO SENSE, as everything the bucs have done shows they prefer to get everyone healthy for the playoffs. If AB was out there it's because he had everyone thinking he could go out and play, pain or not, because he really is a tough SOB. Plus he literally had the incentives to do so.

so Bruce had to have thought AB is healthy enough and he's just quitting on the team. Either way, a "you're done" is hardly some huge offense. But we know AB can be triggered, he says as much himself in his statement. I think he realized if he sits on the bench or goes into the tunnel no one is talking about anything, and literally every party has better options and cooler heads can prevail.

In the end, this stems from lack of trust. AB doesn't trust staffs to care about him and Bruce doesn't trust AB to not quit on the team so both assumed the worst of each other. Still think the best option is to IR him and leave the door for a desperate reunion if need be.

[mdb1958]

Who hijacked your account mdb

Methinks mdb discovered Grammarly...

For the Panther game AB had 15 targets on 53 snaps.

[IchabodCrane84]

Guy who presented a fake vaccination card now wants his credibility on a medical diagnosis to be taken seriously. That's rich.

[MJW]

If Brown had not had issues with the Steelers, Raiders, and Patriots before the issue with the Buccaneers. If Brown had not been caught lying about his vaccination status and obtaining a fake vaccination card. If Brown had not had all the issues with women, chefs, etc.

Then maybe I would take what Brown is saying with less skepticism. However, Brown has done all those things. He has lied in the past. He has done amazingly stupid things in the past. This causes me to have a healthy amount of skepticism about his claims. Perhaps he is telling the truth. Perhaps he realizes he made a man-child mistake and truly made an ass of himself and he is trying to cover that up as he has in the past. I do not know.

As a fan of the Buccaneers, I would like to see the drama stop and the team be able to focus on the rest of the season.

I don't think there will be drama for anyone but the media and the fans who engage it.

While AB was acting like a circus clown on the other end of the field, the Buccaneers were busy engineering a two TD comeback on the road.

He can spend his time vomiting blog posts about his victimhood. The grown men in the building at OBP will be busy making another Superbowl run.

[Miller4Prez64]

I don’t buy AB’s version of this at all. If his ankle was this bad and he felt like the team was forcing him to play against his own will, then why did we not hear about this until the 3rd quarter when the team was down two TDs? It also makes no sense for the Bucs to play him against the Jets if the ankle is that bad when we are more concerned about the postseason. It just doesn’t make sense and reeks of BS, but a lot of dumb people are buying it anyways just like they bought his initial lies denying the fake vaccine card when Stroud outed him. Antonio Brown is a grown man that is literally incapable of holding himself accountable, anything that goes wrong has to be someone else’s fault. His track record shows it his whole career.

I tend to agree with the line of thinking that he was pissed off not getting targets while playing injured. He did a good job putting his ego aside last season and parts of this season, but once receivers started going down and it became obvious that we needed him, I think the old AB started to come back. He got pissed that Brady was targeting his HOF TE more than him while he’s injured and threw a shit fit.

[MJW]

I don’t buy AB’s version of this at all. If his ankle was this bad and he felt like the team was forcing him to play against his own will, then why did we not hear about this until the 3rd quarter when the team was down two TDs? It also makes no sense for the Bucs to play him against the Jets if the ankle is that bad when we are more concerned about the postseason. It just doesn’t make sense and reeks of BS, but a lot of dumb people are buying it anyways just like they bought his initial lies denying the fake vaccine card when Stroud outed him. Antonio Brown is a grown man that is literally incapable of holding himself accountable, anything that goes wrong has to be someone else’s fault. His track record shows it his whole career.

I tend to agree with the line of thinking that he was pissed off not getting targets while playing injured. He did a good job putting his ego aside last season and parts of this season, but once receivers started going down and it became obvious that we needed him, I think the old AB started to come back. He got pissed that Brady was targeting his HOF TE more than him while he’s injured and threw a shit fit.

Combining the 2 prevailing theories, he could have been hurt to the degree that he could tough it out this week, but he knew he wouldn't be able to go next week as he did so. And he had a million dollars worth of incentives on the line, and he wasn't seeing the ball as much as he needed to.

What I don't buy - for a second - is the idea BA tried to force him to play against while he was too injured to do so. That's so contrary to everything we know about BA. This is the guy who says it's okay to take a day off for an important family event.

[King Bootz]

Guy who presented a fake vaccination card now wants his credibility on a medical diagnosis to be taken seriously. That's rich.

It's a good thing he said this then.

The MRI has been read by two top orthopedic surgeons in NYC, including Dr. Martin O'Malley at Hospital for Special Surgery. Not realizing that I had already scheduled a surgery at HSS, the Bucs 'ordered' me under penalty of discipline and with a few hours' notice to show up to a more junior doctor at HSS for another opinion."

If he's lying about getting an MRI at a facility that does in fact exist and having it read by a physician that also exists that will come to light in very short order. No need to speculate.

[ATrain]

[Snake]

Didn’t he also record Gruden and post it?

This dude…

[ATrain]

This is just a mess now. Doesn't BA do a presser on Thursdays? If so, that should be interesting.

You know, what if all this happened just because of a tragic misunderstanding on the sidelines? What if both BA and AB have culpability?

And here's something wild and crazy: What if both admitted their blame, did a joint press conference, and did the adult thing by apologizing and moving on?

I know, I know. This is science fiction type talk. But what if....

[acmillis]

Gonna go ahead and say those "text exchanges" are fake, 100%. IMO, BA wouldn't start a text to a dude who has been on the team for an entire year by saying, "Hey, this is BA."

Who, one year in to their employment, does not have their bosses number saved in their phone and what boss would need to say, one year in to one of their employee's tenure, "Hey, this is your boss."

Either way, AB is a known liar, so him taking a giant deuce on the field during the game, and then saying he was fired is par for the course.

[King Bootz]

This is just a mess now. Doesn't BA do a presser on Thursdays? If so, that should be interesting.

You know, what if all this happened just because of a tragic misunderstanding on the sidelines? What if both BA and AB have culpability?

And here's something wild and crazy: What if both admitted their blame, did a joint press conference, and did the adult thing by apologizing and moving on?

I know, I know. This is science fiction type talk. But what if....

That's not happening. Moving on at this point is AB being put on IR and his season is over or an injury settlement. He won't be cut. Won't be suspended. But trust is gone to shit now. BA may not care about the teams imagine or credibility but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers sure as hell do.

No one to blame but themselves for bringing this chaos to the team.

[King Bootz]

Gonna go ahead and say those "text exchanges" are fake, 100%. IMO, BA wouldn't start a text to a dude who has been on the team for an entire year by saying, "Hey, this is BA."

Who, one year in to their employment, does not have their bosses number saved in their phone and what boss would need to say, one year in to one of their employee's tenure, "Hey, this is your boss."

Either way, AB is a known liar, so him taking a giant deuce on the field during the game, and then saying he was fired is par for the course.

So are you saying they never communicated or that he doctored the text exchange?