Antonio Brown wore out his welcome in Oakland in part because of the way he publicly criticized the team on social media, but it seems all the while he was tweeting these terrible things—he was doing it with an actual smiley face.
Because that was apparently exactly why he did it on social media—to get himself released by Oakland.
Not only has Brown all but admitted that he forced the Raiders to release him once his relationship with the team started to go south, but ESPN said yesterday Sunday that Brown even went as far as to hire social media experts for advice on how to accelerate the process.
The tension between Brown and the Raiders appeared to reach a boiling point when ripped the team on Instagram for fining him over missed practice time. That missed practice time came while Brown was in a war with the NFL over his outdated helmet, and it’s possible—if not likely—that Oakland’s brass was tired of him from that point on.
Brown then had his infamous argument with Raiders GM Mike Mayock at practice, and it appeared things had cooled down when he apologized later in the week. However, he continued with the social media antics by sharing a YouTube video of a private conversation he had with Jon Grudenandpublicly demanding that the Raiders release him after they fined him for the Mayock incident.
Pretty sure he hasn’t tweeted since he landed in Foxboro.