The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced on Thursday that they terminated Antonio Brown’s contract after he refused to cooperate with the team’s attempts to have him seen by a doctor. As expected, Brown’s agent says that is not at all what happened.
Sean Burstyn, who represents Brown, sent a series of tweets on Sunday accusing the Bucs of intentionally scheduling a doctor’s appointment that they knew Brown would miss. The goal, Burstyn says, was concocting a “bogus scheme to engineer a way to cut AB.”
We spoke directly to the doctor and asked if he had reviewed the most recent MRI & CT scans and whether we could reschedule to a reasonable hour. When the Doc said he had not yet seen the images and was graciously willing to see us at a normal time, we texted to reschedule. 3/8
— Sean Burstyn (@seanburstyn) January 9, 2022
Most people schedule doctor’s appointments for healing. In our view, it’s unusually perverse for the Bucs to use medical care as a setup to fire someone.
Doctors are heroes, not pawns. 5/8
— Sean Burstyn (@seanburstyn) January 9, 2022
Burstyn says the Buccaneers needed to find a way to finagle out of head coach Bruce Arians cutting Brown in the middle of last week’s game against the New York Jets. He called the coach’s treatment of brown “degrading” and “inhumane.”
This was pure gamesmanship to create a pretextual termination. All Antonio did was ask to be seen at a reasonable hour by a doctor with current medical records. When AB spoke up about his health this week, he was fired. On the field, then on Twitter. 7/8
— Sean Burstyn (@seanburstyn) January 9, 2022
Arians admits that he kicked Brown off the sideline. However, he says Brown’s ankle injury had nothing to do with it. According to Arians, Brown was upset that he wasn’t getting the ball enough and refused to go into the game because of it. Arians explained his full side of the story earlier this week.
Burstyn says Brown is planning to take legal action against the Bucs. Even if the former Pro Bowler wins a grievance, it won’t change the way people view his surreal mid-game meltdown.
Photo: Sep 19, 2021; Tampa, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians prior to the game against the Atlanta Falcons at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
