Steelers WR Antonio Brown suffers concussion on Vontaze Burfict hit

Antonio Brown suffered a concussion on the late hit from Vontaze Burfict.

Antonio Brown suffered a concussion as a result of a hit from Vontaze Burfict at the end of the Steelers’ 18–16 wild-card victory over the Bengals, head coach Mike Tomlin announced. He will be placed in concussion protocol, and his status for next week is currently unknown. 

Watch: Steelers beat Bengals on FG after late turnovers, personal fouls

Brown wasn’t the only one injured in what turned into an ugly, violent game. Most notably, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisbergersuffered a shoulder injury after a Burfict sack, and had to exit the game at the end of the third quarter. He returned for the Steelers’ final series, but was unable to get much power on his throws. Tomlin said that there’s no indication yet of whether either Roethlisberger or Brown will be able to play next week against the Broncos. 

The much-talked-about hit on Brown came with the Steelers attempting to move into field goal position with 22 seconds left in the game, down by one. Roethlisberger threw an incomplete pass to Brown, and Burfict hit him late, drawing a 15-yard personal foul penalty.

The Bengals’ Adam Jones was flagged for a personal foul penalty of his own soon after (and had some not-so-kind words for the officials after the game). That put the Steelers in position to kick an easy field goal, which they did, knocking off their AFC North rival (and playoff-win-starved) Bengals to advance to the divisional round.

—Amy Parlapiano