WHO WON, WHO LOST?
It worked.
Antonio Brown's
plan to escape Pittsburgh and get a new contract came to fruition just after
midnight early Sunday when the Steelers and
the Oakland
Raiders agreed to terms on a trade, according to NFL Network
Insider Ian Rapoport.
The Steelers will
receive a third-round and fifth-round pick in next month's draft in exchange
for one of the defining receivers of his generation. Brown will also get a
reworked contract with significant new money and brand new guarantees.
Brown's new contract is for three years and $50.125M with a
maximum value of $54.125M, according to Rapoport. (That's roughly $12 million
more than his old contract called for.) He will receive $30.125M guaranteed,
which is $30.125M more than he was due to receive from the Steelers.
Brown even managed to first break the news of the deal with a fancy photo shop
on Instagram.
The trade ends a saga that ramped up in the days before
Pittsburgh's season finale, when the Steelers
benched Brown for missing practice time. A variety of entertaining interviews
and trade rumors followed, with a near-deal to Buffalo on Thursday night being
scuttled. Brown ultimately got what he wanted, the Raiders got
a future Hall of Famer near the peak of his powers and the Steelers wound
up with a lot of dead money on their salary cap.
With the first game of the season still six months away, a
deal of this magnitude deserves some scorekeeping. On to the winners and
losers:
WINNERS
MR. BIG CHEST: It often ends ugly for Hall of
Famers with their original team, but the last few months between Antonio Brown and
Pittsburgh were particularly gnarly. While Brown's complaints about his
quarterback and his coach will hurt his chances for a ceremonial one-day
contract to retire a Steeler someday, I suspect Brown doesn't regret a word.
He wanted to play with a different quarterback, he wanted a
fresh start and he wanted more money. He'll get all of that and more in
Oakland. The Raiders
are a lot further away from competing for a championship than the Steelers,
but it's not like Brown's legacy was built on postseason success. The Steelers won
a total of three playoff games in eight seasons with Brown as a starter, no
matter how many passes he caught. His outrageous numbers and ability to get
open in any situation is yet another reminder how difficult it is for one
player to carry a team to a title. That elusive championship is less likely in
Oakland and Las Vegas, but let's face it: It was unlikely regardless.
In the game of getting paid, no receiver is doing better
than Brown. He made $33.79 million over the last two years with the Steelers and
now gets a huge upgrade in his contract that guarantees an extra $30 million.
In a league designed to limit a player's power because of nonguaranteed
contracts, Brown and agent Drew Rosenhaus took on one of the NFL's most
venerable franchises and won.
This entire episode -- lovingly chronicled on his Instagram
Stories -- also raised Brown's profile to a new level. Like many No. 1
receivers before him, Brown wants to dominate attention like he dominates the
ball. Business is booming.
MIKE MAYOCK AND JON GRUDEN: Giving up only a
third- and fifth-round pick for a player of Brown's caliber is a steal. While
Brown's yardage was down a season ago, the tape and the numbers show he's still at the top of his game.
He gets open with ease, draws attention from teammates and still has a
quickness in tight areas that rivals any receiver in history. Brown will be 33
years old at the end of this deal, just in time to transition to a Vegas
residency for his one-man show.
Gruden replaced Amari Cooper and
two mid-round picks with Antonio Brown and
a first-rounder. That's a ridiculous upgrade. Cooper is younger, but he's never
been close to the same level of player Brown still was in 2018. Mayock, the
new Raiders general
manager, is paying Brown over the next three years roughly what the Chiefs are
paying Sammy Watkins.
That's another win.
RAIDERS RECEIVERS
TO BE NAMED LATER: For now, the Raiders'
No. 2 and No. 3 receivers are Jordy Nelson
and Marcell
Ateman. Like much of the Raiders roster,
consider those spots written in pencil.
LAS VEGAS SEASON TICKET HOLDERS: Brown adds an
undeniable sizzle factor for the Raiders before
their move to the desert. The late Al Davis enjoyed players who were liable to
make news off the field and Brown should provide plenty of fodder on the strip
in 2020, not to mention someone to put on season tickets.
DEREK CARR: Sure, the Raiders could
still get creative in a bid to draft Kyler Murray.
It's more likely, however, that Carr will be throwing to Brown in 2019.
The Raiders essentially
didn't even have a true No. 2 receiver on the roster after trading Cooper last
year, so obtaining one of the game's best No. 1 wideouts is a huge boon.
LOSERS
KEVIN COLBERT, STEELERS GENERAL
MANAGER: Colbert swore up and down that they were comfortable holding
on to Brown unless they received "significant compensation" in
return. This deal tells a different story.
Trading Brown for only two mid-round picks -- at a
significant cost to the team's salary cap -- shows the Steelers were
ready to take the best offer possible. And there weren't many good offers to
choose from, possibly because Brown only would accept going to a team ready to
pay him. Brown will count as $21 million on Pittsburgh's cap this year, nearly
as much as Ben
Roethlisberger. Colbert now has to replace Brown's production with
far less cap space to do so. Brown certainly deserves his share of blame in how
his relationship with the organization deteriorated, but Colbert is the one
paying for it. Usually eating anywhere near this much "dead money"
only happens when teams have to cut some huge personnel mistake, not the league
leader in touchdowns.
AFC WEST DEFENSIVE BACKS: One trade doesn't make
the Raiders a
contender. But Brown's addition should make the Raiders more
watchable in 2019 and a tougher team to gameplan for.
NFL NETWORK "FREE AGENCY FRENZY" PRODUCERS: Couldn't
the Steelers have
waited until free agency coverage started Sunday? The Brown trade -- coming
after reports of deals for Michael
Bennett and Olivier
Vernon on Friday --- serves as a reminder that the NFL
offseason has changed in shape and scope. Big-time trades are now commonplace
and teams don't even consider waiting for free agency to begin making moves.
For Brown, this trade was the culmination of a plan months in the making.
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