{"id":928885,"date":"2026-06-26T00:51:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/928885\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T00:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:51:18","slug":"lesean-mccoy-reveals-the-real-truth-about-antonio-brown-exiting-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/928885\/","title":{"rendered":"LeSean McCoy Reveals The ‘Real Truth’ About Antonio Brown Exiting Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

The end of Antonio Brown\u2019s playing career, and his subsequent activities in retirement, have stained his legacy. However, there was a time when he was the best wide receiver in the league. Brown had an unbelievable run with the Pittsburgh Steelers, recording six-straight seasons with over 100 catches and 1,000 receiving yards. Unfortunately, his Steelers tenure had a messy ending<\/a>. However, former NFL running back LeSean McCoy wants to set the record straight on what went down and why.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what people don\u2019t know,\u201d McCoy said recently on the Speakeasy podcast.<\/a> \u201cBecause I had Drew Rosenhaus as my agent and he had Drew Rosenhaus as his agent. We\u2019ve always been tight. He didn\u2019t want to leave Pittsburgh. That\u2019s the real truth. The real truth is he loved Pittsburgh. He never wanted to leave Pittsburgh. He felt like they didn\u2019t truly value him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey gave [team MVP] to JuJu [Smith-Schuster], which sounds crazy when Antonio Brown is on your team. Then, your Hall-of-Fame-caliber quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who they\u2019ve basically babied for years, even when he declined. AB, say what you want about him, he always was productive, he always was a hard worker. All these things are going downhill for him, and now they ask him to leave? He was mad about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that Brown didn\u2019t really want to leave the Steelers. He had a lot of success in Pittsburgh, and it had become his home. Brown looked like he was set to not only go down as the best receiver in Pittsburgh\u2019s history but also one of the best in NFL history.<\/p>\n

However, the Steelers didn\u2019t force Brown out. He requested a trade even after meeting with owner Art Rooney II. McCoy is talking like Brown is the victim in this situation. The seven-time Pro Bowler made it clear that he wanted to be on a different team. One could argue that the Steelers made him feel that way, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily seem fair.<\/p>\n

Brown has said that the reason he<\/a> asked for a trade out of Pittsburgh was because he didn\u2019t feel like he could win a Super Bowl there. Therefore, either he wasn\u2019t telling the whole truth, or McCoy has the version of the story that is incomplete.<\/p>\n

Yes, Brown has also said that Smith-Schuster being named team MVP in 2018<\/a> was part of why he wanted to leave the Steelers. It feels like an overreaction to ask for a trade because of that, though. Smith-Schuster was deserving of the honor, and it was voted on by the Steelers players.<\/p>\n

Compare his and Brown\u2019s stats for that season. Brown had 104 catches for 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns. Meanwhile, Smith-Schuster had 111 catches for 1,426 yards and seven touchdowns. While Brown scored more, Smith-Schuster had more catches and yards.<\/p>\n

If Brown didn\u2019t want to leave Pittsburgh, then he shouldn\u2019t have requested a trade. It\u2019s as simple as that. And acting like the Steelers treated him poorly and shoved him out the door is rewriting history. Had he kept his cool, he could\u2019ve gone down as one of the best players in franchise history.<\/p>\n

Instead, it\u2019s a story of what could have been.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The end of Antonio Brown\u2019s playing career, and his subsequent activities in retirement, have stained his legacy. However,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":928886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6086,7,1775,6,57,77344,691],"class_list":["post-928885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-antonio-brown","tag-football","tag-lesean-mccoy","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-speakeasy","tag-trending"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116813672152938561","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}