One of the central but less talked about figures in the Antonio Brown meltdown at MetLife Stadium was Buccaneers star wide receiver Mike Evans.
It was Evans who was seen arguing with Brown on the sidelines until Brown tore off his pads and left the stadium. We didn’t know what the two were talking about at the time, but Evans recently spilled the beans.
Speaking to Yahoo Sports’ Matt Harmon, Evans said that he tried to reason with Brown after head coach Bruce Arians told him to get back into the game. When he saw Brown taking off his pads, he tried to get him to stop. But when it was clear Brown wouldn’t listen, he let him do his thing.
Via Yahoo Sports:
I mean, what I remember is we were trying to get him to come back in the game. You know, he was saying he wanted the rock, and I mean, rightfully so. We should have gotten 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 BA still trying to get him to come in the game. And they had like a falling out somehow. And AB goes off. And he’s about to take his pads off. And I’m trying to grab his pads and tell him like, yo, big bro– because me and him have a relationship.
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. The season’s almost over. If you don’t want to be here the next year, you can leave, you know what I’m saying? Like 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 like, all right.
We all know what happened after that. Evans called what Brown did as he left the stadium “unfortunate.”
And then second, third down comes. We score in that drive. But then on TV timeout, we see that he was doing all that stuff, taking his pads off, doing jumping jacks and [MUTED]. I mean, it was unfortunate. I mean, I didn’t know that it was going to go down like that. I mean, I thought you know we was going to have a chance to go to the playoffs and probably repeat. And he would have definitely helped us.
“I just didn’t want him to go out like that, so I’m telling him, ‘Please don’t go out like this.'”@MattHarmon_BYB recently caught up with Mike Evans to talk about Antonio Brown’s abrupt in-game exit from the Bucs and more.
Full interview ➡️ https://t.co/JSVY6kLKjW pic.twitter.com/NUZjmmOMeR
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) February 15, 2022
By the looks of things, Mike Evans didn’t do anything to further fan the flames on the Buccaneers sidelines on that fateful game. What he’s said certainly meshes with what Antonio Brown and the Bucs have said publicly.
You never know how little things can snowball into very large things. Evans learned that the hard way though.
The post Look: Mike Evans Details What Happened With Antonio Brown Situation appeared first on The Spun.