Antonio Brown was seemingly frustrated and angry. So helium walked away.
From the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And perchance his NFL career.
The mercurial wide receiver was kicked disconnected the Buccaneers aft a bizarre, shirtless exit from the tract earlier Tom Brady coolly led the Bucs connected a 93-yard thrust successful the last minutes for a 28-24 triumph implicit the New York Jets connected Sunday.
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Coach Bruce Arians said aft the crippled Brown was disconnected the team.
“He is nary longer a Buc,” Arians said. “All right? That's the extremity of the story. Let's speech astir the guys who went retired determination and won the game.”
Brown's mid-game meltdown came precocious successful the 3rd 4th with Tampa Bay trailing 24-10. He appeared animated portion talking to Mike Evans, who tried to calm his teammate. But Brown stripped disconnected his pads, jersey, gloves and T-shirt — tossing the gloves and T-shirt into the stands — and past walked bare-chested down the sideline and into the extremity zone. He past waved to fans arsenic jogged done the extremity portion and into the passageway astatine MetLife Stadium.
It appeared to beryllium a amusement of vexation by Brown, who had 3 catches for 26 yards.
“I'm not talking astir it,” Arians said. “He's not portion of the Bucs.”
Brown was suspended past period for 3 games for violating the league’s COVID-19 protocols. He besides has a past of idiosyncratic behaviour issues and bizarre behavior.
“It’s a hard situation,” Brady said. “Everybody should bash what they tin to assistance him successful ways that helium truly needs it. We each emotion him. We attraction astir him deeply. We privation to spot him beryllium astatine his best. Unfortunately, it won’t beryllium with our team. ... I deliberation everyone should beryllium precise compassionate and empathetic toward immoderate precise hard things that are happening.”
Brady connected with Cameron Brate for a touchdown connected fourth-and-goal from the 4 soon aft Brown's exit, and the QB finished the Bucs' rally with a 33-yard touchdown walk to Cyril Grayson with 15 seconds left.
The Bucs stuffed Jets QB Zach Wilson connected fourth-and-2 astatine the 7 for nary summation with New York trying to seal the victory. New York manager Robert Saleh said the play should've been a reverse to wide receiver Braxton Berrios, but Wilson had the enactment to sneak it based connected the look.
“We did a precise mediocre occupation of communicating that,” Saleh said, adding that ”it conscionable makes you sick" due to the fact that a handoff to Berrios would've apt been a archetypal down.
Instead, it gave Brady and the Bucs the shot backmost with 2:12 left.
And that was much than capable time.
Brady marched the Buccaneers (12-4) down the tract connected 9 plays, zipping a walk to Grayson — who was elevated from the signifier squad — for the go-ahead score. It was Brady’s 3rd TD walk of the crippled and 40th of the season, joining him with Drew Brees arsenic the lone players to propulsion for 40 touchdowns successful consecutive seasons.
He finished 34 of 50 for 410 yards, the 3 TDs and an interception for Tampa Bay, which had Arians backmost aft helium tested affirmative for the coronavirus earlier successful the week.
Le’Veon Bell ran successful the 2-point conversion against his erstwhile team, forcing New York to request a touchdown. But the Jets (4-12) ran retired of time.
“We’ve been successful immoderate brainsick situations before,” Arians said, "but this was a precise peculiar 1 to travel backmost and triumph that game.”
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