ANTONIO BROWN TO SAINTS

COULD IT, WOULD IT, SHOULD IT HAPPEN?

Antonio Brown going to the Saints wasn’t much of a thing until a tweet from celebrity journalist Michael Silver, on Friday, Mar. 1, set the Twitterverse on fire.

Let’s get one point out of the way quickly. Michael Silver used to be a respected journalist. Like a lot of you. I read his articles on Yahoo! for several years until he slid off into some other kind of dot com thing to the point where’s he’s now what I like to call a celebrity journalist. That is a journalist who is a, albeit very minor, celebrity. But one thing guys like Michael Silver has is connections. So when he tweeted on Friday, Mar. 1, that we should all keep a collective eye on the Saints in regard to Antonio Brown, the Twitterverse hit a black hole, imploded, exploded, lost its collective mind and then hit retweet.

An important point here is that Michael Silver is always pushing a brand, usually himself, and following his tweet, the name Michael Silver was kind of all over the place with people trying to figure out which media outlet he’s currently with. After reading his Twitter bio, I’m still not certain.

If he ever loses credibility with hot take tweet, nobody remembers and he’s back in a day or two. If Antonio Brown doesn’t go to the Saints, we’ll be so busy talking about where he did go that we won’t remember this particular prophecy.

We’ve already written a piece a month ago about why the Saints should avoid AB. But the saga has gotten a little more sunshine since then and the Steelers will actually be looking to trade him prior to the start of free agency on March 13. That date is an important one to remember as five days later, Antonio Brown will receive a $2.5 million roster bonus if still with the Steelers.

Keep an eye on the Saints when it comes to the Antonio Brown chase. AB in that offense would be sick. Just saying.

As of the writing of this piece, the Saints and Raiders had both been mentioned as teams with an interest in pursuing AB with the Redskins and Titans added to that list later.. Since getting him would involve a trade of some sort, one needs to look at how much Brown will cost and whether or not the Saints could afford it. This on top of what that cost would do to the team in the long-term. And, finally, if the sacrifices made would be worth it.

But first we need to take a look at who Antonio Brown is and how he got in to this situation. Some of how he got here will or should cause concern for a team going after him and we’ll look to address that as well.

HOW DID ANTONIO BROWN GET HERE?

The now 30-year old Antonio Brown is out of the Liberty City section of Miami and played high school football there (Miami Norland) until graduation. With no scholarship offers out of high school, Brown attempted to enroll at Florida State but was denied. The same occurred when he tried to go to Alcorn State with the same results.

He decided to attend North Carolina Tech Prep. after that an played quarterback for five games before parlaying that into a scholarship to Florida International. He was booted from FIU after an incident, possibly a fight, with campus security.

Butch Jones had recruited AB while he was still playing high school football and Jones was receivers coach at West Virginia. But that same year, Butch Jones had taken the head coaching job at Central Michigan and that die was cast.

From 2007-2009, while with the Chippewas, Brown put up some pretty impressive numbers. Playing in his freshman, sophomore and junior years he had, respectively, 102, 93 and 110 catches for 1,003, 998 and 1,198 yards for 6, 7 and 9 touchdowns. This was after he’d spent  more time playing quarterback than any other position to that point.

A sixth round pick by the Steelers in the 2010 NFL Draft, it took him one year of getting into the professional rhythm before Antonio Brown’s NFL career really took off in the Steelers 2011 Season. Out of nine seasons in the NFL, Antonio Brown has been named to seven Pro Bowls and has been a four time first team All American.

Aside from three games missed during the 2012 Season with a high ankle sprain, Brown has a surprisingly injury free record in the NFL. After getting very few snaps as a rookie, from 2011 to 2018, Brown missed a total of seven games with three of those coming due to that ankle injury in 2012.

Brown will be leaving the Steelers having made 837 catches on 1,275 targets (65.6-percent catch rate) for 11,207 yards and 74 touchdowns. Pro Football Focus has graded Antonio Brown as high quality twice in his career and four times has he been called elite by that publication.

But it was toward the end of last season, at the end of an already disappointing year, that it was reported that AB and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. This atop already existing locker room drama that ultimately caused Antonio Browne on that, flip.

HOW MUCH WILL HE COST HIS NEW TEAM?

Certainly, the Saints wouldn’t mind having Antonio Brown on the team. He’s dynamic, very gifted athletically, talented and smart. He’s easily one of the best receivers the NFL has seen this decade and will ultimately be a Hall of Famer, most likely.

As of this writing, the rumor is that the Steelers are looking for a first round draft pick. That’s something the Saints don’t have in the 2109 NFL Draft. One second rounder is all they have until round five. Those later picks are worthless in a trade like this one.

Perhaps a trade of a second round pick with some talent thrown in might sway the Rooneys in Pittsburgh? The Raiders are going into this with three first round picks in the upcoming draft, so they’re obviously in the catbird seat.

The Saints could possibly offer something like their second rounder this year and Andrus Peat or the pick and a young receiver like Tre’Quan Smith. But it would cost far too much to try to get a first rounder this year to trade and the Saints don’t need to keep bargaining away high round picks in the future like they did for Marcus Davenport.

With the trade of Antonio Brown will also come his contract which he’s hinted he’d like reworked to offer more guaranteed money. And that four-year, $68 million contract, of which he’s currently going into year three, is not something that can be ignored.

THE CONTRACT ISSUES AND THE FUTURE

Of course, if Brown does ultimately rework his contract in a new location, it will be at terms more favorable to him. And with the contract the way it is now, it’s certainly not working in favor of the Saints. This is the big stumbling block, the biggest hurdle.

If he doesn’t immediately get a new deal, whoever gets Antonio Brown will face a salary cap hit of $22.165 million in his first year with that club. The Saints are currently something like $12 million under the cap without adding any other position via free agency.

That figure is without bringing back Mark Ingram or Alex Okafor or a new tight end or safety. This is without an official backup quarterback on the roster without the money to try to bring back Teddy Bridgewater.

Beyond this, the Saints are looking off a cliff where they’d have Antonio Brown signed to some ungodly amount and when they’re about to have to do the same to keep Michael Thomas. You may want to sit down for this.

Since adding the “Market Value” feature to their site, Spotrac.com is getting a ton of traffic. It’s making average readers of contract information like me into amateur GMs and accountants. The market value for Michael Thomas is finally up.

Michael Thomas is currently playing out his rookie deal, a four-year, $5,118,971, pretty standard rookie deal for a second round pick. If he’s allowed to hit free agency following this upcoming season, in 2020, the market value calculator at Spotrac.com has Thomas set for a five-year, $102,331,350 deal. A whopping $20.4 million a year. And negotiations on that need to start sooner rather than later.

With all of this in mind, it’s time to ask ourselves whether or not Antonio Brown is a sound investment for the Saints if it ends up there is a way to get blood from a turnip.

But, ultimately, you’re talking about paying superstar money to two players with Alvin Kamara coming up in 2021, two years away. Oh, and somebody’s going to want a good quarterback and perhaps a defense, offensive line, that kind of stuff.

A deal with Antonio Brown would have to come down, eventually, to which of the two do you want to keep? Michael Thomas or Antonio Brown? There’s no way having two receivers making that much money a year is in any way sustainable.

Aside from getting him and paying him, then what? What would be the effect of having Antonio Brown on the roster?

HE’S ON THE ROSTER, NOW WHAT?

The first problem you have with putting Michael Thomas and Antonio Brown on the field at the same time is they both play the same position. They’re both WR1s lined up on the left though both do play a little slot.

For Michael Thomas in the 2018 Season, he played 25-percent of his snaps from the slot and Antonio Brown played 16-percent of his snaps there. Pretty similar. But two ranked receiver. Antonio Brown was ranked 26th in a serious down-year.

For the 2017 Season, PFF had them close to tied but Michael Thomas, in only his second year was a 91.5 to Antonio Brown’s 91.3. Of course, it really boils down to who plays other positions well and if Antonio Brown could play WR2 on the right side of the field with a player like Tre’Quan Smith moving into the slot.

But let’s just stop there. The other consideration with Antonio Brown is something the Saints have done a good job of avoiding for the past few years and that’s locker room drama. We’re seeing what that’s like unfolding in Pittsburgh right now. It’s not pretty. It puts an already iffy season into all caps with exclamation points added when you’re losing your two biggest stars after the 37-year old quarterback who’s not really that great.

I mean, imagine in New Orleans if Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara got into it and they left and Brees announces it’s his last season. The period of mourning would be biblical. Well, Antonio Brown seems like he might carry a little of that with him at his next stop.

While it would be nice to have an Antonio Brown caliber player on the Saints roster, having him and Thomas together doesn’t mean both are going to have 1,400 yard seasons. One is going to cut into the others touches. Brown would probably have something more along the lines of the 787 Ted Ginn put up in 2017.

And for that, there’s no way of justifying a $20 million paycheck. AB would have to be coming in much, much cheaper. Less than half of what he’s currently making. That, I would assume, is a non-starter for him. For the Saints the whole thing should be. There are some cheaper options available in free agency as we showed with Michael Crabtree and Tyrell Williams. And you still have Tre’Quan Smith and Keith Kirkwood to develop into starting roles if they’re capable of being more productive.

The deal with Antonio Brown is one of those where you’re taking the future of your franchise for the next ten years and rolling it like a pair of dice on a craps table. The Saints may be a year closer to win now mode than they were with a 39-year old  Drew Brees, but signing Brown would be a desperate and dangerous leap that may lead to a Super Bowl or five or so years of the return of the Saints.

For me and many Who Dats I heard from sounding off on social media when this news break, Antonio Brown to the Saints is a hard no. The consensus view is that all that Antonio Brown brings with him on the field would be nice to have, but, with all the rest, what it would cost? Let that be someone else’s problem. Tomorrow we tackle Le’Veon Bell.