Perhaps the most telling part of Pittsburgh Steelers’ wide receiver Antonio Brown’s impromptu Q&A on Saturday were his comments about quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. According to Brown, Roethlisberger “has an owner mentality like he can call out anybody including coaches.”
This comment really got me thinking. First about just how true it was and if it is true, should it matter. To address the first, I absolutely think Roethlisberger believes this is his team. And why wouldn’t he? He’s been this teams’ franchise quarterback since the minute he was drafted and all the success and failures of the Steelers since that time has fallen on him at some level.
The hot-button topic with Roethlisberger has been his talk in the media about players. Keep in mind, when it comes to Brown he criticized him on a single route run in a single game to the media. This is what we are talking about and forced Brown to do what he did. I would assume — and perhaps mistakenly — when any player speaks to the media about a concern with the team or a teammate it is being done as a last resort. As in, they’ve tried to handle it privately and it hasn’t worked.
It is too bad after so many seasons together, things have de-evolved so far. There is really no going back for Brown and Roethlisberger after Saturday’s Twitter Q&A by Brown. When a quarterback and wide receiver don’t have the confidence of each other it’s over.
