Earlier this week, the Steelers agreed to trade Antonio Brown to the Raiders in exchange for a third- and fifth-round pick in this year’s draft. However, that deal wouldn’t have even materialized if a reported Pittsburgh/Buffalo deal hadn’t fallen apart.
Appearing on the Dan Patrick Show, Raiders general manager Mike Mayock said he initially told the Steelers that he was “not interested” in making a deal for the wide receiver. When Pittsburgh was willing to drop their asking price (and when trade talks with the Bills broke down), the two sides ended up agreeing on a trade.
“I kept saying we’re not interested,” Mayock said (via Andrew Perloff of the Dan Patrick Show on Twitter). “Then the Buffalo thing fell through. One of their guys reached out to Jon [Gruden]. … [Steelers GM] Kevin [Colbert] said to me, would you trade your two? I said no, but we might trade our three.”
The GM said similar things to Mike Florio earlier this week. Despite there potentially being two additional suitors for Brown, Mayock and the Raiders were still able to pull off the deal.
On the flip side, the Bills weren’t able to pull off a trade for Brown. Reports from last week indicated that Buffalo was on the cusp of acquiring the star wide receiver, but the deal ultimately broke down. While there have been several reports that the deal was nixed because of Brown’s unwillingness to play in Buffalo, Bills general manager Brandon Beane continues to claim that it was his decision to not make the trade. The executive told reporters (including ESPN’s Mike Rodak) that talks with Pittsburgh were “positive all around,” but the organization ultimately “just decided to withdraw.”
Brown’s decision to not join Buffalo has led some to claim that the Bills are not a free agent destination. Beane was quick to dismiss that “narrative,” saying the opinion “started with a bad rumor on the Antonio Brown thing when people were looking for reasons and didn’t have all the facts.”
“Don’t speak about Buffalo if you don’t know what this city and fan base is like,” Beane said. “It really pissed me off. It’s not true. How many [free agent signings] flowed through here today? … I can’t tell you how many players commented ‘This is amazing. This is awesome. What a facility. What a culture.’ This city, we love it. Anybody that says that doesn’t know Buffalo and really is speaking out of ignorance.”
The Bills have been relatively active in recent days. The added a pair of wideouts in Cole Beasley and John Brown, and they’ve also added Mitch Morse, Frank Gore, Kevin Johnson, and Tyler Kroft.
Historical context shows that the Steelers actually did pretty well in trading a cancerous diva WR…
The 49ers got only a 5th round pick and a warm body named Brandon Whiting for Terrell Owens.
The Raiders only got a 4th round pick from the Pats for Randy Moss.
And both of them were much better WR’s than Big Chest.
TO’s compensation had nothing to do with him being a diva. His situation was so unique it might never happen again. He was by all rights an unrestricted free agent except for by some technicality with paperwork. The NFLPA was likely to win their grievance on the case, and the 49ers were lucky to get anything for him before the case was completed.
Randy Moss was coming off a 3-year stretch of averaging <800 yards per season and <50% catch rate, including a 767 yard campaign in his last season with Culpepper.
Neither is a good comparison to a player who was firmly under contractual obligation to a team and who led the league in yards two years ago, led the league in TDs this past year, and hasn't had less than 100 catches in a season since Kaepernick was playing in the Super Bowl.
The Steelers will be fine. They have around a 40 year track record of fielding good to great teams. Everyone knocks the dead money. But Lev’s numbers are off this season, clean & the cap went up in millions. They’ll be competitive.
Keep telling yourself that, Big Guy. He so cancerous, yet A LOT of his Steelers teammate, current & former had nothing but glowing things to say about him. Keep pushing that “cancerous” narrative, when the smart people know what player is always directly or indirectly connected to the drama. Have fun keeping the biggest tumor in football on your team, and watch how it continues to spread.
Yep, he was only cancerous to the Ben/Tomlison regime.
Anybody that knows anything about football knows that buffalo bills fans know how to turn tf up on game day
Unlike some on here, I am not in the Steeler locker room on a regular basis, so I have no real idea how much Ben is liked or disliked, but the one point that some of these posters seem to be missing is what was Pitt supposed to do concerning Ben? I know it is a big surprise that they have backed their franchise QB, but what were the other options? Go with Dobbs? Untested Rudolph? Trade a high draft choice for a crappy Rosen? Sign Bridewater? If AB was unhappy with the QB now, how happy would he have been with those options? There really would not even have been a reason to keep AB with those options, because you could pair him with an in prime Jerry Rice and it wouldn’t matter. And you think the cap hit from AB’s exit was bad, I cannot even fathom what Ben’s would be. But, yes Pitt handled the situation poorly by trading him for nothing. Should have either said play or sit. The cap savings alone would have been better than what they got.
Also, agree with it or not, Bell made a business decision. It had nothing to do with Ben. It was all about $. If Pitt had given him what he wanted, he would still be there.
The point is, there have been plenty of players who have spoken out, that have been in the clubhouse, still have friends in the clubhouse that have knowledge of what goes on.
The even bigger point is a great majority of the fans won’t even acknowledge that Ben could even possibly be part of the problem in Pittsburgh. According to them, he has no culpability. If rational people were judging by just things he’s said in front of a microphone, they could see that some of things he’s said are troubling. AB was never gonna win vs the franchise QB, so he did what he had to do to force his way out, and got paid in the process.
Just like Ben’s retirement talk after 2016/2017 was just a ploy to try and GET MORE MONEY, but none of his fans will even admit that, but yet everyone else that wants their money is greedy. I also agree that if they paid Bell he would still be there, but that has nothing to do with his relationship with Ben.