Report: Jon Gruden Approved Antonio Brown's Use of Their Phone Call in Video
During an appearance on ESPN'sDan Le Batard Show, the producer of Antonio Brown's hype video confirmed that Raiders head coach Jon Gruden approved the use of a phone conversation between the star wide receiver and his then-coach in the video before it was released.
In the video, which Brown posted to YouTube on Friday night, Gruden praised Brown for much of the phone call before telling Brown, "please stop this s--- and just play football."
Alejandro Narciso, Brown's video producer, cleared up the confusion on the show.
"My whole thing the entire time when we were waiting for Gruden’s response was that Gruden’s gonna be like, ‘Listen, AB, I love you, man. But that’s disrespectful. I can’t be having you post our own conversations,'" Narciso said. "Which is the response that I think anyone would think was gonna happen. And then, he responds like 15 minutes later. Three texts. He goes, ‘'Wow. I love it! Loved it! I love it!'
"And I was like, ‘What?!’ And we were like, ‘All right. There’s our consent.'"
Naturally, that gave the show quite a laught.
Gruden reportedly saw the video and called it "awesome," per ESPN's Chris Mortensen.
The four-time All-Pro released the video, titled "This is my life. Ain't no more games," with a note explaining that his intent was to "control my own narrative," after several incidents this summer. The Raiders fined Brown $215,073.53 on Friday night for conduct detrimental to the team in connection with an incident from earlier in the week, which voided the $29.125 million worth of guaranteed money in Brown's contract.
Brown then asked to be released from Oakland on Saturday morning in a post strategically shared on social media. The Raiders did just thaton Saturday after a tumultuous offseason and signed with the Patriots on a one-year, $15 million deal later that day.
