Mike Tomlin says Antonio Brown hasn’t asked for a trade

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin held his end-of-season press conference on Wednesday, and he stated that Antonio Brown has not asked for a trade. He also went on to discuss what put Brown on the injury report for Week 17 in the first place.

In a nutshell, Brown complained about a soreness in his knee. Tomlin gave him the day off and when the soreness didn’t go away the following day, Tomlin sent him to get an MRI and go home. Brown went home, but he didn’t get the MRI. What followed was a gross lack of communication between the Steelers and Brown, leading up to Saturday where Brown didn’t show up for walkthroughs. As a result, Tomlin made the call to shut Brown down for Sunday. From there, Brown’s agent Drew Rosenhaus got into the middle of things, calling Tomlin to tell him Brown could suit up, but Tomlin put the kibosh on that rather quick.

Meanwhile, while Tomlin’s holding this press conference, Brown tweets this gem out.

NFL.com’s Kevin Patra goes into further detail on the Brown issues, but he makes a point that as of that writing (Wednesday) Tomlin and Brown still haven’t spoke.

Whether Brown has formally asked for a trade or not is one thing to ask. Brown’s public requests for a trade appear more of a dare than anything. Another relevant question to ask: Remember when that whole Le’Veon Bell thing was an issue? Before Brown got into it with the Steelers, it was all about their running back and his will he/won’t he arrival for the 2017 season. That saga ended with a “won’t he”and Bell choose to sit out his final year and be fresh for 2019 free agency.

So now the big question for Niners Nation: Does this lead to him getting traded to the 49ers? It’s a long ways off before it comes to that. Right now it seems like he and the Steelers can’t play nice, for lack of a better term. We’re a long ways away from Brown demanding a trade and the 49ers entering negotiations.

I guess in order to close this update on Brown, I’ll toss in something random: While all of this is being reported on, Brown found time to be on the masked singer: