Ranking of the trade Antonio Brown from the Steelers to the Raiders

Grade Raiders: A-
Steelers rank: C-
• Learn more about Barnwell's notes

As a 30-year-old catcher who touched the league last season, Brown is not one of those things. For a team in conflict with an aging quarterback, voluntarily turning 11% of his salary cap into dead money requires a set of very specific and strange circumstances. Making this decision and accumulating a pair of mid-round choices is potentially unprecedented.

When it seemed that the Steelers were grumpy about Brown, I assumed that both sides would ultimately work toward a resolution, mainly because it did not have a financial sense for the company. Team to give themselves some leeway to let Brown go elsewhere. Things changed when Brown went on social media and said that he also wanted to change the scenery. It was not quite Terrell Owens who was doing sit-ups in his driveway, but Brown logging into Twitter and calling Ben Roethlisberger had not done him any favors.

Imagine going back 12 months to tell the Steelers biggest fan that you knew Pittsburgh traded Brown for two choices on Saturday. Heck, imagine that you came back six months ago and that you know that the biggest supporters of the Steelers would be willing to work under a contract signed by the Raiders.

The problem of money

If you want to know where everything went wrong in the relationship between the Steelers and Brown, start with one of the best contracts in the history of modern leagues. After Brown's second year in the league saw a 1,108-yard season, the team gave a huge boost to its former sixth-round pick by signing a $ 42-million, five-year signature of $ 8.5 million. The Steelers were only able to sign Brown after two seasons because he had been recruited under the old collective agreement; If Brown had been selected after the 2010 campaign, the Steelers would have had to wait for a third season before signing the contract with Brown.

In fourth year, Brown stood out as one of the league's best outsiders with a 1,499-yard campaign. From 2013 to 2016, Brown was on average – on average – 120 catches, 1,578 yards and 11 touchdowns per season. Since he was under contract until the end of the 2017 season, the Steelers were able to pay Brown $ 28.8 million over four years, a little more than the average annual salary Robert Meachem and Laurent Robinson. enter a free agency. Former Steelers teammate Mike Wallace went public and signed a $ 60 million, five-year contract with the Dolphins, which brought him $ 36.9 million over three seasons before the start of the year. to be eliminated after 2015.

The reason a player would be willing to accept an agreement with this type of structure is that the significant signing bonus usually protects them against cuts, even without a guaranteed salary. For example, at the approach of last season, the Steelers had to choose between keeping Brown in their list with a cap of $ 16.8 million or cutting it or swapping it, which would have cost 15, $ 2 million in fortune. In this scenario, they would choose to keep Brown 999 times out of 1,000, but you can also imagine how this one-thousand example might be enough to upset Brown, if only because it just happened.

Pittsburgh's latest mistake – and a clear sign that she was not expecting to leave Brown soon – was the restructuring of her contract for the last season. The Steelers owed him a base salary of $ 7.9 million and an alignment bonus of $ 6 million, which was not guaranteed, but they converted a salary of $ 7 million and the bonus of alignment of $ 6 million in a signing bonus. That decision brought in $ 13 million to Brown, the remaining $ 915,000 being paid during the season, and $ 9.7 million in space available in 2018. That's the kind of thing that you only do if you are absolutely certain do not need to move from this player to the next season.

Given what has happened over the last decade, you may understand why Brown would feel financially disrespectful, even with a contract with an average annual salary of $ 17 million in new currency. There was no chance the Steelers, who had been playing one of the best football deals for years, would uproot the structure of their contracts by giving Brown another extension or even securing a season with another three years to go. flow out. Instead, they preferred to let someone else pay Brown.

That's one of the reasons they have not managed to get along with the Veon Bell, who says the Steelers have offered him only $ 17 million guaranteed under a $ 70 million five-year contract. This contractual policy will cost the team the two flagship weapons of the same season and its cap philosophy will make the pain of this decision felt during one of the last seasons of Roethlisberger's career.

Compare the Steelers to the team that has prevented them from returning to the Super Bowl in the last eight seasons. The Patriotes rarely restructure their contracts, and when they do, it's not the kind of optimized move the Steelers have made with Brown. Tom Brady is the only player in the Pats lineup to hold more than $ 1.3 million of restructured capital in 2018 or 2019. The Pats also had a similar deal with Brown's initial expansion, with a an extension of $ 54 million that they had awarded to Rob Gronkowski after his second season in the league. However, unlike the Steelers, the Patriots have softened Gronkowski's deal by adding incentives. to help keep their happy star happy.

Oakland gets its No. 1 receiver

Of course, it's tempting to merge the Amari Cooper transaction into this deal and point out that the Raiders exchanged Cooper and two choices in the middle of the round against Antonio Brown and a player in the first round. This has of course been the case in the long run, but it is not the right way to think. The Raiders did not trade Cooper, knowing that Brown would be available for a pittance. Comparing the relative merits of Brown and Cooper is irrelevant because the Raiders have never had a chance to choose between them.

In evaluating this trade in isolation, it is difficult to find an argument against the Raiders doing the move. The clearing project is a water drop for a team with three first-round picks, with new general manager Mike Mayock having resisted Pittsburgh's attempts to negotiate a first-round pick in the media. The 66th and 141st choices are equivalent to the 41st choice in a typical draft of Chase Stuart's preliminary diagram, while Jimmy Johnson's traditional diagram adds them as something closer to the 61st selection. In any case, if you wish to invoke a recent exchange of Raiders, it is the same organization that used third and fifth round picks to exchange Martavis Bryant and AJ McCarron under Jon's supervision. Gruden.

On the financial side, the Raiders entered the off-season with over $ 60 million in capitalization. The absorption of a new deal for Brown would not be a problem. AB's new deal would be a $ 54.1 million, three-year, $ 30 million guarantee, far from the zero and cents left on its contract with the Steelers.

In reality, it is not a contract as huge as it may seem. Brown was not going to suffer a pay cut, so any team trading for him was going to pay him a minimum of $ 15.1 million that he had to have this season. We do not yet know how his deal is structured, but with this $ 30 million figure, it seems likely that he will get a second year guarantee under this new deal, which is not the case. at all crazy. You would think that a merchant team for Brown would expect to have him on his roster for at least two seasons.

In the field, this decision reminds me a lot of why the Cowboys traded against Cooper, actually. When I analyzed this agreement, I wrote that the Cowboys were acquiring Cooper to help evaluate Dak Prescott in anticipation of a possible extension of the off season. Negotiating for Cooper also allowed the Cowboys to get ahead of a terrifying market and, although no one could expect the Cowboys to enter a 7-2 race with Cooper in training, the logic was obvious.

Oakland has its own evaluation here. Jon Gruden spent a year with Derek Carr, and although the results were uneven at times, Carr did not have a formidable receiver corps. He was lucky enough to give Jared Cook a career-wise 101 passes, but Jordy Nelson fared well at 33. Seth Roberts continued to lose the battle against the drops. With Cook as a free agent, Carr watched the bodies of Nelson, Marcell Ateman and Derek Carrier closely. I do not need to tell you how Brown improves this.

If the Raiders decide to recruit a quarterback in the first round, playing with Brown allows Kyler Murray or Dwayne Haskins to adapt more easily to the professional game. Few league receivers are as skilled at opening up against just about any type of coverage. With limited weapons elsewhere in training and a mediocre list in the middle of a rebuild, Brown is well positioned to reach any targets that he might desire. It would not be a surprise if he became the first player to score 200 goals in a season since Julio Jones in 2015.

Realistically, this movement also has a marketing element. When I wrote about the Cooper trade, I mentioned that the nearest Las Vegas display panel of the future Raiders stadium featured only Gruden and Gruden. After trading Cooper and Mack in one season, keeping Gruden on the board was a good idea, as he seemed to be the only one able to get back to Las Vegas in 2020. Negotiating for Brown gives the Raiders a star to build around as they move to Sin City. People would not stand in line to buy Carrier or Ateman jerseys. Brown is a superstar in good faith.

Is there a chance that it will go south? Of course, especially in the second year. Remember that Gruden inherited Keyshawn Johnson when he took over the Bucs in 2002. They won the Super Bowl together in Gruden's first season in Tampa. Halfway through the next campaign, the relationship between Gruden and Johnson became so toxic that the Bucs sent Johnson home and turned him off for the last seven games of the year.

Even if that happens, however, the Raiders will have some money and a pair of mid-term choices. There is no one like Brown in this class of free agents, and there is no one who can move the needle over for his fans who would have also considered Oakland. There is a risk involved, but it is a risk that the Raiders had to take.

Pittsburgh loses his receiver No. … no?

One of the reasons the Steelers will be able to do this business and sleep at night is the presence of JuJu Smith-Schuster, who will not be 23 years old until November 23 and who appears to be One of the most promising young prospects of recent times. Since entering the 9th week of his rookie season, Smith-Schuster averaged 91.8 passing yards, fourth in the NFL behind Hopkins, Jones and Brown.

Hopkins and Jones are clearly the first two options for their own mistakes, while Smith-Schuster must give huge amounts of touch to Brown. Smith-Schuster has an average of 9.6 targets per game against 11.3 for Brown, not to mention the 10.9 targets per game for Hopkins or 10.3 for Jones by competition. Give Smith-Schuster a bigger role, give a few goals to James Washington, a sophomore, and the Steelers should get out of it. Right?]

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Jeremy Fowler said that the Raiders still wanted Antonio Brown to be in their attack and that they "were the last team to rank."

It is not so simple. On the one hand, plugging Washington as a guaranteed wide starting receiver is dangerous. The Steelers have recently touched formations such as Brown, Smith-Schuster, Wallace and Emmanuel Sanders, but they have also used third-round picks against Dri Archer, Sammie Coates and Markus Wheaton, who have not become regulars. Washington has caught only 42.1% of the passes that were launched as a rookie; Of course, it's still too early to judge, but it's not as if the 60th overall has done anything to make us believe it was a plug-and-play star for the first year .

Pittsburgh must probably find at least one wide veteran receiver to participate, which will be painful given Brown's aforementioned attack. The team has already discussed the idea of ​​restructuring Roethlisberger's contract to create a production room, but with a year remaining to yield to the 37-year agreement, any change will be an extension of Roethlisberger's maintenance while creating a short-term production room. The Steelers will eventually pay for their accounting, as they are with Brown here, but they should be able to create about 6 to 7 million dollars of ceilings with a Roethlisberger extension, which could lead to a new wave.

They will probably also run the ball more often in 2019 with Brown on the Raiders. They threw the ball on 67.4% of their offensive catch last season, the second highest rate in football behind the Packers. A better-performing Steelers team will run the ball with a lead more often in the fourth quarter, but even after taking into account changes to the game script, the Steelers should trust James Conner more than a year ago. Conner touched the ball 20.7 times per game last season, compared to 27.1 hits per game in 2017.

AB gets an A?

I normally consider these notes from the team's point of view, in part because it's generally easier to understand the operation and reflections of a team on dozens of acquisitions and Outlets only think of the thing from the point of view of a player who could only sign one or two offers during their career. All NFL players are largely underpaid in a vacuum, but in the context of a league with a salary cap, money matters.

From my point of view, it seems that Antonio Brown fought to get what he wanted and was successful. He wanted to call Ben Roethlisberger for disrespect and did so publicly, prompting an embarrassing comment from General Manager Kevin Colbert that the Steelers had 52 children under Roethlisberger. Brown wanted guaranteed money and a revival of an organization that considered it anathema, only to play his cards well and get exactly that from another organization. He wanted to be respected and appreciated for his work.

No, his chances of winning a Super Bowl are not as high as a month ago. After being underpaid for a good part of the decade, you will understand, however, why Brown would like to take advantage of what will likely be his last chance to get money out of the ordinary. The Steelers will still be good at the attack in 2019, but without their star receiver and if Bell followed him to the door, they could have been paid a last chance to win a Super Bowl with Roethlisberger at the helm.