Antonio Brown Might Have Announced His Retirement From The NFL In An Online Meltdown

On Saturday night, Antonio Brown’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that a few teams had shown interest in signing the wide receiver—provided that Rosenhaus gave those teams updates “regarding [Brown’s] legal situation and the NFL investigation” following the player’s messy breakup with the Patriots amid separate accusations of rape and sexual harassment. But on Sunday morning, Antonio Brown fired off a chaotic tweet storm that likely changed the tune of those interested teams. First there was the announcement that he didn’t want to play in the NFL anymore:

Then there were the shots at Patriots owner Robert Kraft, former tight end and current TV personality Shannon Sharpe, and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, where Brown appears to be arguing that he was punished unfairly for his alleged sexual misconduct compared to the consequences faced by others around the NFL.

(The tweets have been replaced with screenshots as they’ve since been deleted).

Naturally, he didn’t stop there. Brown then approvingly quote-tweeted a Daily Beast article about Pats fans swarming the mentions and DMs of Sports Illustrated’s Robert Klemko following his article that reported on allegations of sexual harassment and stiffing people who have worked for the wideout.

There was never going to be a particularly good moment for Brown to start firing off tweets like these, but he still managed to find perhaps the dumbest possible time to do so. As ESPN’s Christ Mortensen reports, the ex-Patriot is in the middle of filing a grievance against the league to get his $10 million guaranteed from New England. Representing him will be the NFLPA, the same organization who he just called out this morning for not keeping NFL owners accountable.

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