Antonio Brown has Office Spaced his way out of Pittsburgh and will play professional football for the Oakland Raiders in 2019.
There is, as the hipster commentators like to say, a lot to unpack here.
First and foremost, this is just how capitalism works. It is professional football, we're talking about, after all.
The notion that players should have loyalty to their current team beyond the cashing of their paychecks became quaint and twee with the advent of free agency, when we all realized that players back in the days before 1993 weren't loyal; they were captives. Free agency gave players some leverage but the relationship with management is still toxic from the players' point of view given non-guaranteed contracts, team-friendly aspects of the CBA like the structure of rookie contracts, and franchise tags.
I think Antonio Brown is hardly the smartest or most sophisticated of men striding the planet at this moment in time but I don't blame him for how this all went down. He used social media like pepper spray. He acted like a petulant child. He pretended he was the one in charge throughout the process because, in this case, he kind of was. He made it clear he wasn't going to play in Pittsburgh and once he made it clear he wouldn't play in Buffalo - essentially confirming he was dictating/approving the destination - the Steelers were screwed.
There's just so much that puzzles me about this.
How did GM Kevin Colbert, HC Mike Tomlin - and maybe a little bit of this is Ben Roethlisberger's dickish drama queen persona - let it come to this? Pittsburgh lost one of their signature players, a generational talent at his position, and all they got in return is a 3rd, a 5th, and $21MM in dead money on their cap. And that, as it turns out, was the best case scenario? What? No bag of balls and a roll of half-used athletic tape?
Okay, Pittsburgh was probably lucky to get that. When the buyers know the seller has to sell, the price is not going up. (Remember: Capitalism.) When you didn't want to sell, when you didn't have to sell, when what you had to sell was younger and had won three consecutive employee of the year awards, maybe you could've gotten a 1st round pick. Now that you want to/need to/have to sell and what you have to sell is older and keeps reminding people your quarterback is an alleged rapist, then only the Buffalo Bills are going to be willing trade partners.
You remember the Antonio Brown on FaceTime Live mishigas from a few years ago, right?
I remember thinking at the time that if anything like that ever happened in Foxborough (and it's hard to imagine that ever happening in Foxborough) the player involved would be gone. That day. And if the best deal involved Buffalo, that's where that player would be going.
You remember then Patriots' OC Bill O'Brien going ham on Tom Brady on the sideline back in the day.
That's what coaches do, even if it is Tom Freakin' Brady.
Did we ever see a Steelers' coach do that once with Brown despite his numerous sideline antics?
Have we ever seen Tom Freakin' Brady throw one of his teammates under the bus? I'm sure Brady has gone grill to grill with teammates behind closed doors but never with a microphone in his face.
Color me not surprised Brown liked a tweet revisiting Roethlisberger's rape allegations.
Quick Aside: And while we're at it, Roethlisberger is the guy Pittsburgh decided was the "good guy" here? Their face of the franchise leader? Okay, I get it; tough call between Mr. Big Chest and Big Ben when it comes right down to it. Maybe that's just me,
Could shedding Brown (and Bell) help to restore order in Pittsburgh's locker room? Could the players come together, become a team of men who play for each other, return to the playoffs and win a championship?
Okay, no. The answer is no. The Steelers are not better without Brown and Bell and opposing defenses set to double-team JuJu Smith-Schuster. They're lucky to have the Bengals in the AFC North.
Suffice to say, plenty of bad feelings on both sides but if we're talking blame, I'm looking at Colbert (for putting together a contract that resulted in $21MM dead money) and Tomlin (for a locker room culture that creates entitlement rather than accountability), not Brown.
Say what you will about Robert Kraft's penis, Tom Brady's perfect balls, or Bill Belichick's fondness for high-end video equipment; this kind of shit simply does not happen in New England.
The Patriots will pay for talent but they will not overpay and they never compete against themselves. It's why they did not franchise tag Trey Flowers, Trent Brown, or Stephen Gostkowski. The Patriots are 29th out of 32 NFL teams in least dead money. Belichick and his management team write contracts that maximize value. They plan for players like Flowers, Brown, and Gostkowski moving on or pricing themselves out of Foxborough. Belichick famously moves on a year early rather than a year late. When a player wants more money than they're worth, you can't afford to overpay them, not just because of the impact to the cap but also because of the ripple effect across the locker room. Better to put that onerous contract on a competitor's cap than your own.
The point? Antonio Brown isn't just a market disruptor, he's a market inefficiency.
The Raiders will pay $50MM ($30MM guaranteed) to a wide receiver who will turn 31-years old at the start of the 2019 season. Brown has been the very model of consistency but remember, Mr. Big Chest put up those numbers in an offense that featured Le'Veon Bell. After Derek Carr throws his 10th interception in three games, forcing the ball into double- and triple-coverage on Antonio Brown, then what? After watching Amari Cooper's renaissance in Dallas (actually Cooper was pretty good in Oakland and he's 6 years younger), it's fair to wonder if Brown isn't a step up so much as an attempt to just get back to where they were before the Cooper trade (which I think was somewhere south of mediocre). And if Cooper still has friends in the Oakland locker room, they're going to be wondering why their friend didn't get paid but Brown did.
Asking, "Was anyone thinking the Oakland Raiders were just an Antonio Brown away from the Super Bowl?" becomes absurd when you reflect on the Cooper trade. Or the current state of the Raiders roster.
Their running backs are Doug Martin and two guys you never heard of. Their wide receivers are 33-year old Jordy Nelson and three guys you never heard of. Their entire defense is guys you never heard of or you have heard of but not in a good way.
Yes, I'm making the argument the 3rd and 5th round draft picks the Raiders gave up were more important to them than acquiring Antonio Brown and then giving him more money. Before the trade, it was clear Oakland would be fighting with Denver for the AFC West basement in 2019. After the trade, that hasn't changed.
I'm going to set the over/under on the first sideline incident involving Antonio Brown and Jon Gruden at Week 6. And I'm betting the under.
No comments:
Post a Comment