Steelers In On Roby
- Broncos cornerback Bradley Roby is “getting a lot of interest” from teams, according to James Palmer of NFL Network (Twitter link). Palmer reports that the competition for Roby seems to have narrowed down to the Texans, Browns, Steelers, 49ers, Raiders and Broncos. Everything we’ve heard recently has indicated Roby will be walking in free agency, so it would be a bit of a surprise if he returned to Denver. A 2014 first round pick, Roby has been a solid player but has never quite lived up to his draft status. He started 15 games for the Broncos last year.
Giants Discussing Odell Beckham Jr. Trade
The Giants are still involved in trade discussions with Odell Beckham Jr., according to a source who spoke with Jeff Howe of The Athletic (on Twitter). We’ve been hearing conflicting reports on OBJ’s availability, but it appears that one of the league’s best wide receivers remains is on the block. 
The Giants, we heard, would not seriously entertain offers unless they were “overwhelmed” by another club’s pitch. But, at the same time, head coach Pat Shurmur was fed up with OBJ’s antics at times last year. OBJ drew the ire of team brass in 2018 when he openly questioned Eli Manning and the club’s quarterback situation.
Dave Gettleman gave his Odell Beckham Jr. party line at the combine, but nothing can be ruled out after Antonio Brown – this generation’s most dominant wide receiver – was traded to the Raiders. Brown’s lucrative extension with the Steelers did not preclude a trade and it’s believed that the Giants will approach OBJ talks with a similar mindset.
Following an injury-plagued 2017 campaign, OBJ managed to reel in 77 catches for 1,052 yards and six touchdowns in 12 games last season. If he stays healthy and has the right pieces around him, it’s not hard to imagine OBJ getting back to the exceptional form he exhibited from 2014-2016.
Latest On Antonio Brown
After many twists and turns, the Antonio Brown saga finally came to an end when the Steelers agreed to trade the embattled receiver to the Raiders. To sort out everything that went down, Albert Breer of SI.com took a deep dive into the trade negotiations and broke down the events that led up to the agreement to send Brown to Oakland. While reports that Brown wanted a new contract only began trickling out in the past few days, Breer writes that teams were aware of his demands long before that. Breer notes that teams knew they’d have to give Brown a new contract if they traded for him a month ago, right when this all started.
It helps explains why things took so long to heat up, and why there weren’t too many known suitors. Brown’s demands apparently only got larger as the process went on, as Breer notes that “Brown went from initially wanting tweaks (getting existing money guaranteed, etc.) to wanting a big raise.” Breer confirms that a trade was indeed close with the Bills, and that after talks with Buffalo fell apart over money, the Eagles, Redskins and Raiders all reached out. Presumably, those were the three mystery teams “still alive” in this report from Friday. After the Raiders and Steelers agreed on draft compensation, “the deal was on the verge of crumbling” at one point Saturday as talks between Oakland and Brown’s agent hit an impasse. Obviously, things eventually got sorted out and Brown got the added money he was looking for.
Here’s more surrounding the All-Pro wideout:
- While everyone just wants it to be over, things aren’t done quite yet. A source emphasized to Gerry Dulac of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link) that the “trade is agreement only and ‘it’s never over till it’s over.'” Interestingly, Aditi Kinkhabwala of NFL Network then tweeted that she was told “exactly the same thing” by a different member of the Steelers organization. This could turn out to be nothing, but it’s worth noting coming from multiple places. It would be fitting for things to fall apart now given how dramatic the whole ordeal has been.
- Brown’s agent, NFL super-agent Drew Rosenhaus, appeared on NFL Network after the trade and said he got permission to negotiate with the Raiders on Brown’s behalf Friday afternoon, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). If that timeline is accurate, it would mean that Oakland had already received permission to negotiate with Brown when the trade with Buffalo was supposedly breaking down. Rosenhaus refused to say whether Brown would’ve reported to his new team if he hadn’t gotten a new contract. Rosenhaus also had praise for new Raiders GM Mike Mayock, saying he acted like a “veteran NFL GM” throughout the process.
Fallout From Antonio Brown Trade
Now that the Raiders have agreed to acquire Antonio Brown from the Steelers, you can be sure that more news about the deal (and the deals that were discussed, but never came to be), will be trickling in. We will monitor the AB fallout here throughout the course of the day, as the football world continues to process the conclusion of the biggest storyline of the offseason:
- The Eagles did discuss Brown with the Steelers, but as ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweets, those talks never got serious. Instead, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were simply doing their due diligence.
- Eliot Shorr-Parks of 94WIP.com suggests it was the new contract that Brown was demanding, rather than the draft picks, that scared the Eagles away (Twitter link).
- Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (via Twitter) agrees with Shorr-Parks’ theory, saying that plenty of teams were willing to give up the third- and fifth-round picks that ultimately got the job done, but the Raiders were the only team that was willing to tear up Brown’s existing contract and give him a new one.
- Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports tweets that the Bills were willing to swap 2019 first-round picks with the Steelers (No. 9 for No. 20) and trade away two mid-round picks, but it was Brown’s contract demands that proved to be the undoing of that potential deal.
- La Canfora adds in a separate tweet that the Redskins were still engaged with the Steelers after the Bills deal fell through earlier in the week, but it is unclear how serious the Pittsburgh-Washington talks became.
- Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com concedes that the Raiders easily got the better of the Steelers in this trade, but he reviews what Pittsburgh’s options were, and none of them were good (Twitter link). The Steelers could have cut Brown and received no trade compensation — which also would have allowed Brown to sign with any team he wanted, including a major conference rival — or they could have kept him, fined him when he didn’t report to camp, and hoped that he wouldn’t retire because he would have had to pay back $11MM if he did so.
- Fowler also passes along a couple of Raiders-related notes in a separate tweet. A source close to Brown said the wideout was excited about joining the Raiders in part because of the presence of head coach Jon Gruden and quarterback Derek Carr. Brown is also intrigued by the Raiders’ collection of high draft picks and young talent, and Raiders defensive coordinator Paul Guenther — who had to devise many a game plan for Brown when he was the Bengals’ DC — strongly endorsed Brown’s game.
- Plenty of people have been wondering why the Steelers didn’t demand one of the Raiders‘ three first-round draft picks before agreeing to deal Brown to Oakland, and NFL Insider Adam Caplan says the Raiders simply refused to do so (Twitter link). Although the Raiders would of course have preferred to give up one draft choice instead of two, the club was adamant about holding onto its three first-rounders and one second-rounder.
- Although the Steelers‘ $21.12MM cap hit that they will have to absorb for Brown in 2019 is a killer, the trade does save the club $15MM in cash that can now be spent on other players, as Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk observes.
- Brown’s contract with the Raiders has set a new benchmark for players like Julio Jones, Tyreek Hill, and Michael Thomas, who will all cash in shortly.
- Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com takes an excellent in-depth look at the saga and what it means for both teams.
Steelers To Trade Antonio Brown To Raiders
Hallelujah, the great storm is over. The Steelers have agreed to trade Antonio Brown to the Raiders in exchange for a third- and fifth-round pick in this year’s draft, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter links). The news has since been confirmed by other major outlets, but Brown himself was (fittingly) the first to break the story, having posted a Photoshopped picture of himself in a Raiders uniform and a picture of himself and Oakland QB Derek Carr at the Pro Bowl (via Scott Bair of NBC Sports Bay Area on Twitter).
RapSheet also tweets that Brown will get a new deal from the Raiders, which does not add any more time onto the three years he had remaining on his contract with the Steelers, but does make him the highest-paid receiver in the game from an AAV standpoint. Brown’s new pact with Oakland will pay him $50.125MM over the next three seasons, plus $4MM in incentives, for an AAV of $19.8MM. Plus, Brown gets $30.125MM in guarantees, and his contract with Pittsburgh had no guaranteed money left.
New Raiders GM Mike Mayock appears to have come out quite well in his first trade as the (figure)head of the Oakland front office, and the Steelers’ return has been universally panned. But as Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette observes (via Twitter), and as we have expected for some time, Brown’s erratic behavior and demand for a new contract torpedoed the Steelers’ bargaining position. Also, the fact that Pittsburgh was willing to accept such a low return suggests that the club was never going to bring Brown back and that it was more concerned about ridding itself of Brown’s antics, as Dulac tweets.
The Raiders played the long game, per Jerry McDonald of the Bay Area News Group (via Twitter). The Raiders have long coveted Brown but believed they were out of the running for him as of Wednesday. However, they did not get desperate and try to up their offer, and in the end they got their man for their price. And the fact that they did not have to add any years onto Brown’s deal to convince him to sign off on the trade makes it even more of a coup.
So the Raiders get a dynamic wideout to assist in their rebuild and their transition to Las Vegas in 2020, but what about the Steelers? The trade adds some legitimacy to the speculation that the team is trying to appease quarterback Ben Roethlisberger at all costs — perhaps to stop him from retiring — and that the relationship between Brown and Big Ben had become truly untenable. Of course, the club has an excellent track record of finding top-tier receiver talent all over the draft, and they now add a second third-round choice to their 2019 draft capital along with a fifth-rounder to replace the one they sent to Oakland last season to acquire Ryan Switzer.
However, the trade is devastating from a salary cap perspective. As ESPN’s Field Yates tweets, Brown will now count for more against the Steelers’ cap in 2019 ($21.12MM) than any other WR will count for his own team. It is a tough pill to swallow, but as with every transaction of this magnitude, the passage of time may ultimately change everyone’s perspective.
Latest On Antonio Brown, Steelers
It’s been more than a full day since the report that a deal was “close” to being done for Antonio Brown, but the Steelers haven’t moved yet. We still don’t have any word yet on where he’s heading, and it’s become clear that part of the holdup with trade negotiations is the fact that Brown wants a pricey new contract wherever he goes. After Odell Beckham Jr. signed his record-breaking deal last year, Brown “took note of the new money hitting the receiver market” and wanted to get in on it, writes Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com.
While Brown has apparently been plotting on how to get a new contract for a while, Fowler does caution that the “notion that Brown sought a trade and publicly criticized his team solely over a new deal is misguided.” In his article, which is worth a full read, Fowler breaks down how Brown is “working the system” to get a huge new deal while he still has three years left on his current one with the Steelers.
- Speaking of Brown’s contract, we have more clarity on what exactly he’s seeking. Yesterday we heard he was looking to become the highest paid receiver in the NFL, and now we have more on his demands. Brown wants between $18 and $20MM per year on any new deal, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports hears (Twitter link). That explains why things have been taking so long. Beckham got $18MM per year on his deal, and Brown will have a hard time getting more than that. Beckham was 25 when he signed his deal, and Brown is 30. If any team is going to pay him quarterback money, they’re not going to want to give the Steelers any compensation for the right to do it. If that’s really what Brown is holding out for, it might be a while before this is resolved.
Roethlisberger Could Be Working Behind Scenes
We heard yesterday that an Antonio Brown trade was “close” and that three teams were “still alive”, but over 24 hours later we still don’t have a deal. While we await an end to the saga, it’s worth examining why the Steelers are so willing to meet Brown’s demands and trade him, writes Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com. Florio questions why the Steelers are seemingly “letting Brown dictate the terms of his employment,” and came up with a hypothesis based on his relationship with Ben Roethlisberger.
Brown has publicly gone after Roethlisberger in recent weeks, which could’ve solidified the Steelers’ resolve to ship him out. Florio theorizes that the feud between Brown and Roethlisberger isn’t just one-sided, and that Roethlisberger may be pushing for Brown to be gone behind the scenes. Florio thinks Roethlisberger may have given Pittsburgh’s management an ultimatum, and that could be why the team hasn’t tried to reconcile with Brown at all. It makes some sense, and if nothing else it’s an interesting theory.
Antonio Brown Would Welcome Raiders Trade
The Raiders have continually been mentioned as a main suitor for Steelers wideout Antonio Brown, and it sounds like that interest may be mutual. Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review-Journal writes that Brown would “welcome the Raiders as a trade destination.”
Specifically, the wideout is intrigued by the team’s impending 2020 move to Las Vegas. Playing in an untapped market is one allure, and Brown would also avoid state income taxes in Nevada. The Raiders were previously mentioned as one of the three teams that have shown the most interest in the All-Pro wideout.
The one sticking point between the two sides regards a long-term deal; while Brown desires a new contract, the Raiders are wary of handing out big bucks to a 30-year-old wideout. As Gehlken writes, the team may decide to go with cheaper options at receiver, with the writer mentioning Tyrell Williams as a potential option.
On the flip side, the Raiders have the assets to trade for Brown (including three first-round picks), so they wouldn’t be taking a giant hit when it comes to draft capital. Plus, Brown would be a massive upgrade in an offense that lacks a dynamic playmaker. Brown finished last season with 104 receptions for 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns. The Raiders’ leading receivers, tight end Jared Cook and wideout Jordy Nelson, combined for 131 receptions, 1,635 yards, and nine touchdowns.
We heard earlier this week that the Steelers were focused on completing a Brown trade by Friday, and it sounds like they were close to pulling off a deal. Early Friday morning, the Bills appeared to be on the cusp of acquiring Brown from the Steelers, but the deal was ultimately scuttled.
Details On Failed Bills/Steelers Antonio Brown Trade
The Antonio Brown era with the Bills didn’t last long. Shortly after it was reported that Brown was headed to Buffalo, the report turned out not to be true. It was acknowledged by all parties that there were talks between the Steelers and Bills but we didn’t know many details of what exactly happened, until now. Vic Carucci of The Buffalo News came out with a story that delved into what happened, and talks apparently broke down because of Brown’s contract. Bills brass was going back and forth with Brown’s agent Drew Rosenhaus, and “discussed a potential renegotiation of the receiver’s contract,” according to Carucci.
Carucci noted that the more new money the Bills gave Brown, the less compensation they were willing to give the Steelers in a trade and vice versa. Carucci shot down reports that Brown was mortally opposed to playing in Buffalo, writing that the Bills were confident that “if they met his financial demand and were able to make the trade, Brown would have happily joined them.” In the end, renegotiating Brown’s contract proved too difficult and is what ultimately led to the breakdown in talks.
- Speaking of Brown, the Bills weren’t the only team to withdraw over Brown’s contract. Another team pursuing Brown walked away because “it was communicated to them” that Brown wanted a new contract that would make him the highest-paid receiver in the NFL with any new team, according to Albert Breer of SI.com. It was previously thought that the Steelers’ demands for a first round pick might’ve been delaying this process, but it sounds like Brown’s contract is the biggest hurdle at the moment.
Steelers Close On A Deal To Trade Antonio Brown, Three Teams ‘Still Alive’
The Antonio Brown saga might be coming to an end soon, this time for real. The Steelers are “close to a deal to trade Antonio Brown,” a source told Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Unfortunately, Dulac doesn’t speculate the team that Brown will be heading to, so we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out the details. In fact, Dulac says three teams are “still alive” in the process. Dulac doesn’t specify which three teams are still in the running. Brown was reported to be on his way to the Bills late last night, but that turned out not to be true.
Reports first indicated the Steelers were viewing today as a deadline to trade Brown by, but that was then walked back. All of the recent reporting has been that the Steelers continue to demand a first round pick in trade talks, and it’ll be very interesting to see what they end up getting back.
The Raiders have been one of the teams consistently mentioned as being interested, and they have plenty of draft assets to make it happen. Many teams have publicly removed themselves from the running, and the Steelers have seemingly been left without many options.