The saga is finally over.
After coming close to pulling off a deal to send him to the Bills early Friday morning, only to have Antonio Brown nix the deal, the Steelers found another dance partner.
The Steelers came to an agreement Saturday to trade the disgruntled receiver to the Raiders, ending the seven-time Pro Bowl player's time in Pittsburgh.
The move brings to an end one of the most troubling times in recent history for the Steelers, who finished 9-6-1 after a 7-2-1 start last season.
☠️☠️☠️ #RaiderNation pic.twitter.com/ul6lIVk9dE
— Antonio Brown (@AB84) March 10, 2019
***premium***
The Steelers had a rough deal in place late Thursday evening to send Brown to Buffalo, but Brown balked at the idea of playing for the Bills, sending the Steelers back to the drawing board.
The Raiders had been among the favorites to acquire the All-Pro receiver all along. The team is in need of receiving help and also is in need of star power as it prepares to move to Las Vegas, perhaps as early as 2020.
According to Adam Schefter, Brown will receive a new-and-improved contract as part of the trade, as well.
Raiders are adding money to Antonio Brown’s deal: He now will have three years worth $50.125 million - with incentives to go to $54.125 million, per source.
Where there was no guaranteed money there’s now $30.125 million guaranteed, per source.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 10, 2019
The deal is the third between the two teams involving wide receivers in the past year. The Steelers shipped Martavis Bryant to the Raiders during the draft last April for a third-round pick. Bryant has since been suspended by the league for a violation of the substance abuse policy. Then, in training camp, the Steelers sent a fifth-round draft pick to Oakland for Ryan Switzer and a sixth-round pick.
In Brown, however, the Raiders get that star, albeit one who wore out his welcome in Pittsburgh.
Brown left the team midway through practices for the Steelers' regular-season finale against the Bengals, failing to return phone calls from team president Art Rooney II and coach Mike Tomlin. He then had his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, contact Tomlin the morning of the game and say his client was ready to play.
Tomlin refused to play Brown in the 16-13 Steelers victory and Brown left the game before halftime.
Since then, Brown has gone on a slash-and-burn attack on both social media and in a pair of sit-down interviews last week, blaming Ben Roethlisberger, Tomlin, GM Kevin Colbert and even Rooney for his displeasure with the franchise that selected him in the sixth round of the 2010 draft.
Brown, 30, is coming off a season in which he caught 104 passes for 1,297 yards and a league-best 15 touchdown in just 15 games. It marked his sixth consecutive season with 100 or more receptions, an NFL record.
Brown finishes his career second to Hines Ward in every meaningful receiving category with 837 receptions for 11,207 yards and 74 touchdowns.
But his behavior in recent seasons has raised some eyebrows, starting with his decision to post Tomlin's post-game speech following a playoff win in Kansas City in 2017 live on social media.
Tomlin fined Brown for that incident, but others have followed. In 2018, Brown threatened a national reporter with physical violence on social media, then called a local reporter a racist.
He was sent home from training camp after suffering a quad injury, but then showed up in a video in Miami while he was supposed to be resting and rehabbing.
Then, following the team's Week 2 loss to Kansas City, Brown failed to show up for a team meeting the following day. Later in the season, he was cited for driving at more than 100 miles per hour on McKnight Road in Pittsburgh.
Brown was scheduled to earn $12.625 million in base salary in 2019 and had three years remaining on his contract. The Steelers save $1 million against their 2019 cap by dealing Brown but are still liable for $21.2 million against their cap for the receiver. That's the remaining portion of the signing bonus from his 4-year, $68-million deal with the Steelers.
Brown's departure means the Steelers have just three receivers on the roster who caught passes with them in 2018, JuJu Smith-Schuster, James Washington and Switzer. Darius Heyward-Bey, Justin Hunter and Eli Rogers all are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents Tuesday when the NFL’s new year begins.
LOLLEY'S VIEW
While on the surface, this looks like the Steelers completely caved, here's the reality: No team was trading for a player who had acted out like Brown and also was wanting the kind of contact Brown was demanding.
The Steelers didn't get the second-round pick I thought they would all along, but they did get a very high third (66th overall) and a fifth, as well that is the third pick in that round (141). That's the second pick of the third round and the third pick of the fifth.
Suddenly, the Steelers have a lot of draft capital with which to work in a very deep draft. After getting a sixth-round pick from Arizona Friday in the Marcus Gilbert trade, the Steelers now have picks 20, 52 66, 83, 122, 141, 175, 192, 207 and 219.
That's 10 picks in a seven-round draft, which puts them in the company of the Patriots in terms of overall draft capital.
That's the thing that tipped the scales for the Steelers. While they didn't get the first-round pick they coveted, they did get multiple picks in the first two days of the draft.
That gives them four picks in the first two days overall, all of which are in the first 83 selections.
And they now have the draft capital to move up and get a player they desire in the first or even second round, if they so choose. In fact, you can bet now the Steelers won't make all 10 of their selections. Some of these picks will be traded.
Was the return too little for a player considered one of the best players in the league at his position? Perhaps.
But look at it this way. The Steelers are getting more for Brown than they will get for Le'Veon Bell. They'll have to wait until next year to get a potential third-round pick for Bell once he signs a free agent contract. The only difference is that the Steelers will get the picks for Brown now.
As for Brown, we'll see how he likes winning about five games with the Raiders this season. According to ESPN.com's latest odds, the Steelers are plus-$650 to win the Super Bowl in 2019, the fourth-best odds in the league. The Raiders are plus-$2,500. This trade doesn't really change that.
He's a great player, a generational player. But he's heading to a far different locker room than the one he enjoyed in Pittsburgh.
