Antonio Brown’s NFL career is almost certainly over. But it wasn’t that long ago that he was an All-Pro wide receiver playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike Tomlin.
Brown’s NFL career ended in controversy and was mired in troubling events along the way, but he found his greatest success with the Steelers and has said he’d love to retire as a member of the organization one day.
However, Tomlin appeared to confirm recently that while there was a time Brown and the Steelers were a great match, those days are in the past.
“He’s moved on, we’ve moved on,” Tomlin said of Brown on The Pivot Podcast.
Tomlin shared his honest thoughts about Brown, who earned seven Pro Bowl selections, four All-Pro nods, and four team MVP awards during his time with the Steelers.
“What I’ll say about AB is this, we had nine great years,” Tomlin said. “I appreciate that dude in ways I can’t explain to y’all. … I don’t think enough gets said about the will of that dude, about the work ethic of that dude, about the fearlessness in which he played the game. … I’ve never seen him blink on the football field. I’ve never seen him shy away from anything that was uncomfortable on the football field. I’ve only seen him run into burning buildings, as they say, on the football field. We talk about all this other stuff, but we don’t talk about that.
“Unbelievable will. Unbelievable work ethic. Unbelievable belief in himself. That’s what I think about when I think about the nine years that I spent with that dude.”
Tomlin said he continues to be in touch with Brown and said that while the wide receiver hasn’t handled everything in the best way possible, he’s made improvements along the way.
“Success,” Tomlin said, “is a slippery red carpet.”