3:03 pm | January 15, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:
New Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians was offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers when Antonio Brown was a rookie.
And speaking from afar, Arians doesn’t like what’s happening with the Steelers’ All-Pro wide receiver.
“There’s too much miscommunication, too much … diva,” Arians said Tuesday on The Adam Schefter Podcast. “I’ve heard so many stories — I like Antonio — he plays as hard as anybody on Sunday and he practices hard. He’s just gotta make better decisions off the field, be on time, do some of those little things.”
Arians told Schefter that the Brown he’s seeing today is not who he saw when the team drafted the wide receiver in 2010.
“He was the hardest working,” Arians said. “He and Emmanuel Sanders, boy they went after it because Mike Tomlin used to tell them, ‘two dogs, one bone.’ And at that time we had Mike Wallace, Hines Ward, I mean we had a pretty good run for one of them to get on the field. By the end of the season, they were both winning for us to go to the Super Bowl.”
The Steelers lost to the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl that season. Arians stayed as offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh for another year but left after eight seasons with the team in 2011 to become offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts. He became interim coach when head coach Chuck Pagano became ill and was named AP Coach of the Year for leading the team into the playoffs. He also won Coach of the Year with the Arizona Cardinals in 2014.
Brown’s absence from Week 17 practices resulted in a benching for the Steelers’ season finale against the Cincinnati Bengals, and during that week Brown had a flare-up in a team setting.
Last week, team president Art Rooney II told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Brown would not be released but “all other options are on the table” regarding his future with the team. He also said that it would be “hard to envision” Brown as part of the team when it reports to training camp in late July.
Powered by WPeMatico