Brown, Bucs disagreement on ankle was reason for mid-game departure

So Antonio Brown was, in fact, making a grand “I’ve just been fired” exit.

When the wide receiver removed his uniform and left the Buccaneers sideline shirtless in the middle of the third quarter of Sunday’s game against the Jets, he did so because the coaching staff had just cut him right there, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Monday.

Bucs head coach Bruce Arians and the coaching staff had told him to go into the game.

Brown, who did not practice Thursday and Friday with an ankle injury, did not think he was healthy enough to even play.

That disagreement inevitably led to his getting cut from the team right then and there.

“The response, then, from the offensive coaches and from Bruce Arians was ‘if you are not going to go into the game when we tell you to go into the game, then you cannot be here,’” Rapoport reported.

Brown was then told to get off the sideline.

Andrew Mills / NJ Advance Media Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown gestures to the crowd as he leaves the field — while the Bucs were on offense against the Newyork Jets — during the third quarter of an NFL game on Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J. Brown did not return.the Bucs won, 28-24.