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Mike Evans has confirmed that Antonio Brown wanted the ball before his infamous shirtless meltdown at MetLife Stadium.
Evans spoke to Yahoo Sports about the blowup, which occurred in the middle of the Buccaneers’ game against the Jets.
“What I remember is we were trying to get him to come back in the game,” Evans said. “He was saying he wanted the rock. And I mean, rightfully so. We should get him the rock. I mean, he’s an unbelievable player. But like, yo, come in the game, AB. So we’re asking him to come in the game. We’re on offense. And I’m like, ‘AB, big bro, come on. Let’s go in the game’. They’re calling for us, because me and him are both on the pitch count. Because we’re both coming back from injury. And so I’m trying to get him to come in the game. And he doesn’t come.
“So I go back on the drive. I do my two plays. I come out. And then I see [Tampa Bay coach Bruce Arians] still trying to get him to come in the game. And they had like a falling out somehow. AB goes off. And he’s about to take his pads off. I’m trying to grab his pads and tell him like, ‘yo, big bro’. Because me and him have a relationship.”
Three separate incentive bonuses, totaling $1 million, were within reach at the time of Brown’s Week 17 meltdown. The Bucs have said that Brown had asked the team to guarantee these incentives. Brown has said that his meltdown came as a result of the team forcing him to play on an injured ankle.
Evans talked about how he wished Brown would’ve stuck it out, because the team needed him.
“And I don’t want him to go out like this. Like we obviously we need him, so I’m telling him, ‘big bro, we need you,’” Evans said. “The season’s almost over. If you don’t want to be here next year, you can leave. You know what I’m saying? Obviously I just didn’t want him to go out like that. So I’m telling him, please don’t go out like this. And they’re calling me to come back in the game. So I just left him alone.
Evan went back into the game, unaware of the viral moment that was about to happen.
“And then second, third down comes,” he said. “We score on that drive. But then on TV timeout, we see that he was doing all that stuff. Taking his pads off, doing jumping jacks and shit. It was unfortunate. I didn’t know that it was going to go down like that. I mean, I thought we were going to have a chance to go to the playoffs and probably repeat. And he would have definitely helped us.”
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