Nation, on a morning where we should be celebrating a victory, talking about the play on the field, and looking ahead to a huge AFC title game with the Patriots, we find ourselves contemplating the impact of social media.

Yes, I’m talking about the Antonio Brown locker room Facebook Live video.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can click on the tweet below (note: there is some NSFW language).

https://twitter.com/Steel_Curtain4/status/820916120978911232

It’s not that anything bad, wrong or inflammatory was said on the video. It’s not even that anyone watching got a glimpse of some poor unfortunate Steelers naked butt, or that we got to answer questions about exactly what wasn’t going to “suck itself”.

None of that is why I have a problem with that video.

It has to do with something much simpler: trust and respect.

If you have ever played organized sports, you know that the locker room is kind of like Las Vegas. What happens there, stays there. After a win, guys are jubilant, excited, thrilled and are likely to act and speak without thinking. There is an implied brotherhood to the locker room. A sense that the things said there are between the players and coaches, and not meant to be publicly exposed, let alone broadcast.

Who cares?

Who really cares if Mike Tomlin called the Patriots “those a**holes”?

I don’t.

In my mind that’s probably the perfect term to use when describing the Patriots!

All kidding aside, do we care that AB decided to share a very private moment, as the team sat down for their post game prayer?

Maybe a little. That seemed over the line to me.

Do we care that a butt naked player (maybe Landry Jones, not really sure) was shown without their consent?

As fans, no. Maybe we don’t care about any of those things.

But as Antonio Brown’s teammates? I think that might be a different story.

Does “whomever’s” flat white butt was being broadcast to some 42,000 live viewers, and later viewed nearly a million times, really care?

Well he might. He didn’t go into that locker room assuming his butt was going to be broadcast to the world!

Did Mike Tomlin care that his post game speech, intended to be heard only by his players, care that it was now broadcast to any and everyone?

You bet your over-exposed butt he did!

He may downplay it in the media, and say it’s not important, and then again, he may not.

No matter what he says, I can’t imagine a scenario where it didn’t tick coach off.

This has been a talking point on every radio show I’ve listened to this morning. AB is being called massively self-obsessed, and maybe he is (okay, obviously he is).

Is it something that his teammates are just going to shake their heads about and say “That’s just AB”?

Again, maybe.

But the bottom line is that this behavior, in this circumstance, is a definite violation of trust.

What was AB thinking?

I don’t believe that AB necessarily intended that. I think he got captured by the fact that the “viewers” just kept climbing and climbing, and he was trying to feed his own ego by seeing how high those numbers were going to go.

Hell, 42,000 live viewers is pretty damn impressive, and I can understand how that would feed into anyone’s head. He also knew that doing it right after the game, in the locker room, would attract more eyeballs.

What he could have done instead, is wait 30 minutes, and do the same thing on the drive to the airport. He probably would have gotten nearly the same number of viewers.

So why didn’t he? I believe this is about AB misunderstanding the situation and circumstances of going live at that moment, and not realizing that your actions have repercussions beyond just a cute little video.

Some of his teammates won’t care.

But I bet some of them will.

Coincidence?

To top it all off, there is real irony in hearing, on a live social media stream, someone say “Stay off social media this week.” There is no question that Coach Tomlin will not be pleased about this particular action, and, as Tunch and Wolf said, he will likely get “called into the principal’s office”.

I love AB. I love his personality, and his willingness to engage with the Nation.

But this was a step too far.

It has a bad look, and a potential distraction that could easily have been avoided.

Big Deal?

Ed Bouchette put this really well when he said this “The Yankees were ticked off when Jim Bouton dishes on behind scenes locker room stuff in his book “Ball Four”.

AB takes it to a new level”.

It was a big deal, and it shouldn’t have happened.

If the Steelers win next weekend, it will be forgotten and set in the rearview mirror.

If they don’t, then people will be pointing to this all off season and asking the question I keep asking myself right now…

Why?

I can promise you this – I will bet my Steelers-themed underwear that it won’t happen again!