This is my first foray into this thread, and I only clicked on it because I was puzzled that it's survived this long. The reason I'm puzzled is that I happened to catch a retweet of the original Twitter exchange at the time it happened. It seemed so inconsequential to me that I didn't really pay attention to who Brown was responding to, or to what the tweet that was calling Brown out was in response to.
The gist of the part of the exchange that I saw read (to me) something like:
--- "Antonio, you wouldn't be nearly as successful as you've been if you hadn't been with the Steelers!"
Brown shot back with:
-- "Oh, yeah?! Well trade me then, and see how I do somewhere else!"
Short version:
-- "You're not that good!"
-- "F**k off, troll!"
I mean, my recall, and/or interpretation could be way off, but it seemed to me perfectly clear to me at the time that Brown wasn't demanding a trade so I stopped paying attention. Meanwhile, the situation has apparently blown up to the point where Brown's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, felt compelled to make the following statements today:
"The tweet yesterday was not in reference to anything other than Antonio responding to a person he knows. It was not directed towards a trade, or wanting to be trading. Any idea he was asking for a trade is not accurate.”
“Antonio had a personal matter. I talked to the team about it. His issue was unrelated to the tweet or his relationship with the team. Third, AB has an incredible drive to win. He just wants to win. That's all that that is.”
“That's not anything more than him encouraging his coaches and teammates to win. And that's what his entire focus is on. Any notion, any speculation otherwise, can be put to bed. This is a non-story that has been blown out of proportion. We can end this right here and now."
