Antonio Brown Officially Requests Trade

The inevitable has finally happened.

Per Adam Schefter of ESPN, Antonio Brown has requested a trade.

The request comes after a long yet strange off-season for Brown, most recently noted by his failure to appear in court for a speeding ticket.

On Tuesday, Brown posted this video on his Instagram account:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

SteelerNation thank you for big 9 years!!! Time to move on and forward……. ✌🏽 #NewDemands

A post shared by Antonio Brown (@ab) on Feb 12, 2019 at 9:27am PST

Signs of Brown wanting out have been made very clear throughout the past few months, with Brown sharing posts of him photo-shopped into other team’s jerseys, Jerry Rice speaking on his behalf of him wanting out of Pittsburgh, and Terrell Owens doing the same among a myriad of ambiguous posts through Twitter and Instagram.

This had been building. Drew Rosenhaus told ESPN a few weeks ago that he had told the Steelers Brown’s ‘position’ on things. Many close to Brown believe he was done playing scapegoat for Steelers‘ problems and wanted new start.

— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) February 12, 2019

It was unknown how the Steelers front office felt about Brown’s antics, until team president Art Rooney II made public comments about his superstar receiver. A trade appeared imminent, as the ongoing drama between Brown and the Steelers has reached levels that now may be far too deep to revive.

The Steelers cannot actively move Brown until March 13th, the start of the NFL’s new season. The Steelers will have nearly $22 million in dead cap space with Brown’s contract.