One month ago today, Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians fired receiver Antonio Brown during a game. So he left. If became the biggest story in the league for much of the week.
Appearing Tuesday on CBS Sports Radio, Buccaneers quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen reflected on the incident.
“I just hate that it escalated so fast,” Christensen said, via JoeBucsFan.com. “I just think that, you know, everyone’s uptight as those games go on, especially receivers. Anyone who’s been on an NFL sideline knows how intense that can get.
“I think this one escalated and the thing that was so sad to me about it was that we didn’t even get between a series. It was in the middle of a series that you saw a career end, or whatever happened, in the middle of two plays. It wasn’t like Tom [Brady] could come over and sit down and talk with [Brown]. Or Byron Leftwich or a lot of teammates that have known him for a long, long time. I think that the sad part to me was that it escalated so fast and just, you know, it was too quick and too severe and I wish we had had a chance for cooler heads to prevail and talk through it and work through it. . . . I think the severity of how the way it ended, it just happened too quick. I wish it would have been different.”
It escalated because, as Brown tells it, coach Bruce Arians told Brown to re-enter the game, Brown declined, and Arians eventually told Brown to get out. When discussing the matter publicly, Arians initially left out the fact that Brown was told to leave; eventually, Arians acknowledged that Brown left because he was told to.
Christensen also acknowledged that Brown, during games, is “wired tight, which is what makes him so great and sometimes it can be a two-edged sword.” Christensen also regarded Brown as an “asset” to the team.
Christensen clearly regrets that the situation wasn’t defused. Implicit in his remarks is the fact that Arians did nothing to de-escalate. Arguably, Arians pressed Brown’s buttons with a predetermined end in mind.
A month later, Brown is gone. And now quarterback Tom Brady is gone. Maybe if they’d kept Brown, they’d both still be on the team -- because they’d both be getting ready to play another game, 12 days from now.
