Once bitten, twice shy.
Two sources with knowledge of the Patriots thinking scoffed at the idea Antonio Brown would rejoin the Patriots this season.
When one source was asked if there was a chance the wideout – who was with the Patriots for less than two tumultuous weeks in September – might have a chance at rejoining the team, this was the two-word response.
"What's changed?"
I mentioned Brown's social media apology to owner Robert Kraft earlier in the week and his meeting last week with the NFL as possibly changing the equation.
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I was told that it does not.
At issue aren't hurt feelings that Brown couldn't fix with a few keystrokes. It's the wariness of something else cropping up down the road.
When the Patriots signed Brown, there was no advance notice from Brown's agent Drew Rosenhaus that Brown was on the cusp of being slapped with a lawsuit by his former trainer Britney Taylor even though the legal wrangling between Brown and Taylor's attorneys had been going on for months.
And while it was subsequently reported Rosenhaus couldn't break a confidentiality agreement Brown supposedly had in place, the fact that the Patriots entered into the Brown experience not knowing at all that that bombshell was waiting to explode makes them unwilling to go down the same road again.
Florio: If Patriots don't sign Antonio Brown, "somebody else will">>>
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