Things might get awkward at the start of Raiders OTAs in May.
That's when new teammates Vontaze Burfict and Antonio Brown will share a locker room for the first time.
Burfict (Cincinnati Bengals) and Brown (Pittsburgh Steelers) played on opposite sides of one of the AFC North's fiercest rivalries, and things came to a head in the 2015 postseason. That's when Burfict knocked Brown out of the playoffs with a dirty, illegal hit to the head, and received a three-game NFL suspension.
Antonio Brown and Vontaze Burfict are now teammates. 👀 pic.twitter.com/SyMXzVjmYM— Ali Thanawalla (@Ali_Thanawalla) March 20, 2019
But Burfict, who signed a one-year contract with the Raiders on Tuesday, told reporters in a conference call he isn't concerned about any lingering tension between himself and the talented wide receiver.
"We're on the same team, with one goal. It's all positive, man," Burfict said. "He's a great player, he's gonna be a Hall of Famer one day, and honestly I'm gonna approach him just like I do all my other teammates. I'll introduce myself, all that good stuff. ... There's nothing negative over here, man. We're on the same team, everything's [about] trying to win a championship over here."
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The Raiders traded for Brown earlier this month, and he tweeted Tuesday that he had already reached out to Burfict.
Just talked @King55Tez black and silver baby #RaiderNation #BullySeason— Antonio Brown (@AB84) March 20, 2019
That's a marked departure from the ex-Steelers star. When former Pittsburgh teammate Juju Smith-Schuster crushed Burfict with a vicious block, "no one enjoyed [it] more than Brown," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook wrote Tuesday. In the aftermath of Burfict's hit, Brown made his displeasure with the play clear to Cook.
"I feel like guys don't want to stop me no more," Brown told Cook in early 2016. "They want to take me out. They want to kill me. They want to steal my dreams. They want to ruin me. They want to end me."
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Burfict, for his part, sounded more than ready to bury the hatchet Tuesday. He said he'll keep an open mind when he meets Brown, as well as the rest of his new teammates.
"Honestly, we might [end up being] the closest friends on the team, you know what I mean," Burfict said. "So, just gotta go along with it, and I can't wait to meet him."
If Brown's tweet is any indication, he feels the same way.
