When Buccaneers cornerback Brent Grimes officially becomes a free agent in March, don't look for him to be making a return to Tampa Bay, and that's because he apparently isn't a very big fan of the team.
During an interview this week, Grimes had multiple complaints to make about the Bucs, and it seems his biggest complaint was that the team asked him to shadow Antonio Brown in Week 3. Apparently, Grimes, who made $7 million in base salary in 2018, felt the Buccaneers weren't paying him enough to justify a tough defensive assignment like that.
"I just couldn't agree with it," Grimes told his wife Miko on her #IHeartMikoPodcast, via ESPN.com. "It's just disrespectful. People who follow receivers all the time, unless they're on a rookie contract or trying to get paid, are usually making $13-15 million a year."
According to Grimes, he was so upset by the Buccaneers' request that it ruined his mindset for the season and caused him to have a bad year.
"That's not right. It's disrespectful," Grimes said. "It just f---ed up my whole vibe for the whole year, to be completely honest. It's just disrespectful. I just felt disrespected."
To sum this up: The Buccaneers asked Grimes to do his job and then he got offended because he didn't feel they were paying him enough to do what they asked him to do. To add to the drama, Grimes was benched during the second half of Tampa Bay's 48-10 loss to the Bears in Week 4, which was just one week after the Brown incident.
Grimes, who just finished his third seasons with the Buccaneers, also said that the coaching staff took his spirit away.
"It was gone. The whole year," Grimes said. "From training camp -- it was gone."
According to Miko, her husband was so upset with the Bucs that he thought about skipping Tampa Bay's Week 17 game against the Falcons.
"Before that week, you wanted to pull an Antonio Brown," Miko Grimes said. "You told the coaches that you were not playing Sunday. You [were] like, 'F--- this, I'm not playing. I'm sick of y'all. You benched me twice for some dumb s---.'"
With free agency right around the corner, this podcast probably wasn't the best way for Grimes to sell himself to other teams.