Joe pretty flat out said he wants to retire a Shark. His angry comments at Wilson at the time were circumstantial.
As per Drew Remenda on the podcast, Wilson did not say it in a way intended to be malicious, but the dumb journalist who went to Thornton with the story to get his comments omitted the nice things Wilson said and just said "So Wilson said they had to strip the C from you because you get frustrated and lash out at teammates when things are not going your way, what do you think of that"
Drew Remenda also broke the story on podcast about how his later comments were not meant as Jabs at TMac at all. That he considered him family and said he should talk to them before making any decisions. But the same sensationalist journalist looking for headlines intentionally misinterpreted his words for a big headline. Remenda literally said that Joe texted him the moment the story broke because that was not what he said at all.
But everyone chooses to ignore that story and stick with "Joe takes jabs at coach"
That Journalist should be blackballed.
In any case, Plattner came into the picture and as per another journalist(Friedman I think), pretty much guaranteed Joe could retire a Shark to put the matter to bed