Another day, another report regarding Antonio Brown‘s future. NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport provides the latest update (via Twitter): the Steelers have yet to give Brown and/or his agent permission to pursue a trade. While a “fresh start is preferred” by the wideout, the team is still in complete control of the situation.
However, while the team hasn’t allowed Brown’s party to seek a trade, it doesn’t sound like the team is against a deal. Rapoport notes that the Steelers are “exploring trade options,” and the wideout will predictably “draw significant interest” on the market. To add more confusion to the situation, Brown apparently hasn’t closed the door on returning to the organization; Rapoport notes that the wideout has expressed that sentiment to those he’s close with in the organization.
Our last Brown update came earlier this week, when owner Art Rooney II seemingly softened his tone on the receiver’s potential return. Previously, Rooney seemed to close the door on Brown playing in Pittsburgh next season, telling reporters that it’s “hard to envision” Brown being with the team in training camp.
As our own Dallas Robinson noted earlier this week, the Steelers will incur more than $21MM in dead money on their salary cap and gain just over $1MM in new space if the cut or trade Brown before June 1st. If he’s designated as a post-June 1 cut or traded after that date, Pittsburgh will take on roughly $7MM in dead money in 2019 and ~$14MM in 2020. Brown is also due a $2.5MM roster bonus on March 17, so the team could look to deal him before that date.
The 30-year-old had another productive season in 2018, hauling in 104 receptions for 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns. However, he was benched for Week 17 after missing the team’s Saturday walkthrough, and subsequent reports indicated that there was major tension between the player and the franchise.
The soap opera continues and mr Rooney doesn’t think this team has turned into a three ring circus. This is from a life long Steeler fan.
It’s not a circus. Two players – Bell and Brown. That’s it. Trade Brown, get the pick(s) and move on. I’d send Brown and our number one for SF’s number one. Spurs went through the same thing with Leonard. Great organizations sometimes have an issue or two themselves.
And I too am a life long Steelers fan.
Just how much kool-aid do you drink while accepting the revisionist history? The roots of the problem in Rooneyland actually go back to the shameful disrespect that James Harrison was shown by management but it’s more convenient for some of you to pretend that that never happened.
When was Harrison disrespected? I have definitely forgotten that.
Im assuming he’s talking about Harrison being cut on Christmas Eve last year
Bell had nothing to do with what was going on. He never even entered the the locker room ALL year. Bell Didn’t criticize management for drafting a QB, after holding the team hostage every year with retirement talk. Bell Didn’t do any interviews throwing teammates under the bus. You’re right, it was 2 guys. You just got the duo wrong. I fixed it for ya.
How in the world does a team incur a 21m dollar hit in dead money for trading a player?!!? I thought if you traded someone, them AND their contract went to where you traded them to. Dead money, whatever the hell that is, only occurred when releasing r cutting a player?
Most NFL execs don’t understand the cap rules. As a fan, don’t bother.
Yea, the why and how I leave up to overthecap.com and spotrac.com pretty sure NFL GMs do the same.
I hope not. They likely have some accounting type nerd that understands the cap.
I’m pretty sure they have nerdy, numbers guys that have that info readily available to them.
Probably has to do with money already paid to the player via signing bonuses.
For NFL trades, you can’t trade prior contract payments, only the go-forward portion.
For cap calculation purposes, up-front signing bonuses are spread over the life of the contract.
So, up-front signing bonuses stay with the original team and continues to get applied to the cap.
Because the cap rules in football are strange to say the least . If you cut or trade someone the remaining money on their deal that was guaranteed as bonus instantly comes due. Unless you do such a move after June 1st and you can split it between two seasons .
because the Steelers constantly “kick the can down the road” so that money is holdover from previous years.
Another day, another lame story ‘update’…minus the update.
You don’t have to keep reading if you don’t like the articles
You do know this is a rumors site right? The purpose of this site is to do exactly what it’s doing .. if you just want to hear the facts , once deals and moves are completed.. don’t look .. get a Normal feed from your fav sports site. Sorry .. just makes me wonder why people complain about rumblings and rumors when you clicked and opened up the site and article.
May be $21m in dead money, but Bell’s $17m will be cleaned. It’s not as bad as its been made out to be. Throw in a pick or two from Brown and Maybe Bell, if they tag and trade him; & Pit can reload w/ the draft class.
They also carry forward the 17mil from last years cap that went unused by Bell.
Pardon my lack of football knowledge, but can someone please explain in liman terms what exactly is “dead money” and what it means for both the player and the team? Thanks!
Let’s say you buy a car… it gets repossessed. Just because you don’t have the car any more doesn’t mean you don’t still owe the bank the money you borrowed. They have a cap amount set aside for Brown based on the contract he signed. It’s applicable for the coming season whether he is with the Steelers or not. They can not recover his designated salary so they call it dead money because it was space that’s being taken up by a player no longer on the team.
$21 million in dead money does not tell the whole cap story. If Brown is traded, the Steelers also save $12.65 million in salary, so the net cap hit is under $9 million. Not sure how the $2.5 million roster bonus would be treated, but if it is avoided, more cap room should be created. Factor in $14.5 in cap space rolling over from Le’veon Bell’s unpaid 2018 salary, and the Steelers’ cap situation in 2019 should improve due to the departures of Brown and Bell. More importantly, the Steelers will have lowered their “KQ” (knucklehead quotient) to a manageable level.
No way you trade AB and our first for SF’s first. Have to at
Least get their 2d as well or a starting CB or ILB