Antonio Brown ended his 2018 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers on an embarrassing note, and team owner Art Rooney II has clearly had enough of the distractions the star wide receiver has created.
In an interview with Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday, Rooney said the Steelers have no plans to release Brown but that “all other options are on the table.” He also said the team is not closing the door on the possibility of smoothing things over with Brown, but he is not optimistic that will happen.
“There’s no sense making the decision now. We’ll see how things play out,” Rooney said. “Maybe he decides to come talk to us some day and we learn more about where he is. We’ll see.
“As we sit here today, it’s hard to envision that. But there’s no sense on closing the door on anything today. There’s snow on the ground. We don’t have to make those decisions right now.”
There has been a lot of talk about the dead cap hit the Steelers would have to absorb if they traded Brown, but that has been overstated. Rooney is the one responsible for signing the checks, and he says money will not be the deciding factor.
Brown was essentially benched for the final game of the season after he got into an argument with Ben Roethlisberger during practice and went AWOL. He was apparently complaining of knee pain, but he did not undergo an MRI like the team asked him to. Brown also made headlines for the wrong reason during the offseason at his apartment complex, so you can understand why Rooney seems to be openly looking to move on from him.
