Antonio Brown s splay explosion and the "trade with me" tweet add to the Steelers soap opera season

If the NFL team is content to leave stuff and anger to others, it is the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose mantra is "such is life".

Not in 2018. The last distractions? A leap forward from receiver Antonio Brown on Sunday, followed by a strange tweet "let me know" on Monday, which only added to the kind of more common drama, say, the New York Jets. But Ben Roethlisberger's mid-season internal dialogue about Le'Veon Bell's retirement and continued restraint make it an all-out campaign for Mike Tomlin's 0-1-1 side.

The latest episode was about Brown, who seemed upset on Sunday as JuJu Smith-Schuster and Jesse James were frequent targets for Roethlisberger, who scored 452 yards and three touchdowns in a 42-37 shootout loss to the Kansas Chiefs. City. Smith-Schuster had 13 passes for 121 yards and one touchdown while James had five passes for 138 yards and one touchdown. Brown? He was targeted 17 times, catching nine passes for 67 yards. In two games, he has been targeted 33 times. On Sunday, he clashed with offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner. And in the fourth quarter, with the team trying to launch a no-huddle attack, Brown took his time to get back to the line.

When the Steelers players celebrated a Roethlisberger TD race that allowed the team to stand within two minutes of the end of the game, Brown left the field alone. After the match, Roethlisberger tried to explain what was going on.

"I know the defenses are trying to take him away, double up and put extra people around him. So, other guys are mobilizing, "he said. "Jesse James, JuJu is obviously doing beautiful things. I thought Switz [Ryan Switzer] do a good job tonight. I thought James Washington was playing games. So the other guys got mobilized and did good things.

That stalled a week during which Brown apologized for threatening ESPN's author, Jesse Washington, in a tweet about a recent story. "I made a miscalculation with my tweet last week and I'm sorry," the statement said. "It's not good to threaten anyone and I have to be better spiritually and professionally. Although I do not agree with the negative aspects of my personal story, I need to better control my actions to use social media as a means of dialogue with my fans, rather than using them inappropriately.

No matter what Brown was eating on Sunday, the usually loquacious receiver did not speak after the game. He left the locker room as the journalists arrived. Monday morning, he raised the bar, responding to the idea that he had to "thank his good stars because he had been recruited by a team that had Ben" with a tweet of five words:

"Let me know," he writes.

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