After a recent report about the New England Patriots being interested in the idea of bringing back free-agent wide receiver Antonio Brown surfaced, there was a follow up that denied the validity of that happening.

WEEI radio host Christian Fauria reported on Thursday jumpstarted the idea of Brown reuniting with the Patriots by saying that the team has ‘kicked the tires' on the possibility. That was if Brown was cleared to play by the NFL and was able to return to game action.

“I think they have kicked the tires,” he said. “I know there have been discussions. That’s for sure”

Fauria's report was refuted by Tom E. Curran of NBC Sports Boston stating that two sources ‘scoffed' at the thought of Brown rejoining the Patriots.

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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.

According to Curran, an issue from the Patriots' perspective was that they weren't informed of the fact that Brown was close to being sued despite the ‘legal wrangling' that went on between the attorneys of both sides.

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.

With the way Brown's team handled his original tenure with the Patriots, it's understandable why it's one might scoff at the idea of him returning to New England. A social media apology was certainly not enough to change that.