Too bad this story is over, it was the only thing interesting in local sports for two months.
Oh yeah, and the Steelers are pathetic.
Oh yeah, and the Steelers are pathetic.
Mr. Big Checks aka Mr. Big Chest to the Raiders
- Thread starter BigBird80
- Start date
Hockey season is now interesting. Can’t really follow it too closely until about now.
Souf doesn't know what he's talking about.
There was no market for him.
Oh really. 10 teams had to drop out after not being able to hit his contract demands. Buffalo willing to put the #9 overall pick out there for him. Ya no market for him.
Bad contract by the Steelers. Ya, he was out of guaranteed money with only a $13 million cap hit for the #1/2 receiver in the league. Ya, terrible contract.
There was no market for him.
Oh really. 10 teams had to drop out after not being able to hit his contract demands. Buffalo willing to put the #9 overall pick out there for him. Ya no market for him.
Bad contract by the Steelers. Ya, he was out of guaranteed money with only a $13 million cap hit for the #1/2 receiver in the league. Ya, terrible contract.
It's really not this guy himself or even this team. It's the precedent.
Forget stupid discipline issues or anthem kneeling. This is really where Goodell is a failure. He needed to get Rooney and the lawyers in a room and say, no WAY you trade this guy for anything less than a first round pick or more, or the personnel structure of whole league could fall apart. Let this guy rot on a shelf for 3 years, if needed, but no way you trade him for garbage. Major failure for not just the team but the league.
Entertaining though... who will be next to conjure a crazy act to get out of a place and deal? Beckham? Sherman? Just make sure to do it in the offseason before hockey playoffs and March madness (not that we'll ever care about that again here this decade).
Forget stupid discipline issues or anthem kneeling. This is really where Goodell is a failure. He needed to get Rooney and the lawyers in a room and say, no WAY you trade this guy for anything less than a first round pick or more, or the personnel structure of whole league could fall apart. Let this guy rot on a shelf for 3 years, if needed, but no way you trade him for garbage. Major failure for not just the team but the league.
Entertaining though... who will be next to conjure a crazy act to get out of a place and deal? Beckham? Sherman? Just make sure to do it in the offseason before hockey playoffs and March madness (not that we'll ever care about that again here this decade).
The difference between the Steelers and the Patriots is that the Patriots organization, Belicheck and Brady all come way above the rest of the team. We can say Ben does here, but if AB was on the Steelers after last year's antics, they would have traded him last year for a boatload of picks. They would have just outright released Bell letting him hit free agency.
The Patriots would then have taken the cap money saved and not signed mediocre players like Jon Bostic or Morgan Burnett and also accumulated some high picks for AB and signed and drafted some talent to bolster the roster.
The Steelers held onto these antiquated norms of "no player will hold us hostage" when in fact that is exactly what Bell and AB has done.
This management group (Art II, Colbert and Tomlin) aren't the sharpest tools in the box and they are wasting Ben's last years that they may be better off trading Ben, showing how "good of a coach" Tomlin is without Ben, hitting bottom, cleaning house and starting over.
Without Dan Rooney, I am worried about this franchise. Hey, on the brightside it is time for Pitt football to prepare to get its act together.
Colbert is not good. Colbert was brought in after Cowher and Donahoe had their rift. Cowher wanted a GM that was just going to get out of his way and let him build and draft the team he wanted. After Cowher left, Colbert now has to make decisions and run a draft.....and he's not done a good job. Far from the worst in the league, but he's very mediocre.
$21.2 mil of dead cap space for a player who isn’t there is clown shoes mismanagement.
And yes-
No market for him
Hence the best deal the Steelers could get was a 5th this year and a 3rd next.
Because nobody was offering anything better
This isn’t complicated.
You swallowed the first round koolaid and were loud wrong.
Yeah, but read my post above. The Patriots would never be put in this situation. Some late 3rd rd pick in free agent compensation (think pick 100) would not be enough to let Lev Bell hold $14 million of cap room hostage. The Steelers wouldn't cut Bell because they figured the franchise tag would at least give them compensation if he walked. What they didn't count on was sitting out and some of the obvious fine print, complications of these rules that absolutely need to be removed and changed. (that's a whole another topic).
AB? After the end of last year, with his selfish and boorish behavior becoming more evident, the Steelers should have at least explored the options of a trade last offseason. Again, that is what Belichick would do, he doesn't put up with this crap. While Rooney/Colbert and especially Tomlin appear weak and allowing an organization that fosters this kind of behavior.
There was a market and many other HIGHER offers, but none met the market for his NEW contract demands. Teams were lines up for his talent and current contract even at the agr of 31. You are wrong.
it's true and fits the trend of high profile replacements not living up to their predecessors. Rooney2 for Dan; Colbert for Donahue; Haley and the drinking buddy for Arians and Whis; Butler for LeBeau; and increasingly evident, Tomlin for Cowher.
Not terribly so, because the team doesn't outright stink like Cleveland has for so long, or a bit of a joke like Cincy ... but just enough so that the Steelers are more or less just jabronies in the conference now, all looking up at NE.
It's tough for the city to deal with, more than the franchise. The focus is still on profit and (increasingly) looking politically correct. This is just a pothole. Art 2 wasn't even fazed enough to avoid posing for a glamour shot with AB. It's the yinzer fans, much like PSU fans when the "honor" facade exploded, that will feel more pain: You are not elite.
As McKee Place said, this is a bad precedent. The Steelers have allowed a road to be cut and paved for future malcontents to follow. Hell, they helped draw the map! Bad for the Steelers and the league.
Let's keep things simple.
AB is a first round talent. No doubt. Is he a wacko? No doubt. However, Cooper got a first rounder for him and is not the talent that Brown is. The pot smoking, one infraction away from suspension Bryant got a third rounder for him, from the Raiders no less!. Is the difference between Brown and Bryant really only a fifth rounder? Wow!
Steelers only had to pay $2.5 MM to extend the negotiation time with other teams. This is a drop in the bucket for them. Hold on to Brown until draft day and see if the market "picks up" for him. Will some team be willing to ante up more for him on draft day? Maybe. Worth the wait plus it shows Steelers resolve and that they control the situation.
If a deal still doesn't come along that you like, then you go into training camp with him. You take the hit on the salary cap regardless whether he is on your team or not. You had plans on going forward without him anyway so no big deal. If he shows up, then you have to pay. This is where the financial hit is now real for the Steelers. If Brown says that he won't play, then you don't have to pay him. If he does play, he may bitch and moan but he still has an ego and will do his best. Just have to live with the distraction. Eventually, his teammates would have turned on him and duct-taped his sorry a$$ to a chair in the closet.
As Steeler fans, we are pi$$ed that we got so little in return. It hits home in a more direct way and the pain is now. However, the real pain is longer term for the Steelers as an organization and for the League. The Steelers have given in to a malcontent and have helped to write the playbook on how to win in negotiations with a Team and the League. The Steelers and the League needed to look long term and big picture as well.
Extremely disappointed in the Steelers if this is all true.
Let's keep things simple.
AB is a first round talent. No doubt. Is he a wacko? No doubt. However, Cooper got a first rounder for him and is not the talent that Brown is. The pot smoking, one infraction away from suspension Bryant got a third rounder for him, from the Raiders no less!. Is the difference between Brown and Bryant really only a fifth rounder? Wow!
Steelers only had to pay $2.5 MM to extend the negotiation time with other teams. This is a drop in the bucket for them. Hold on to Brown until draft day and see if the market "picks up" for him. Will some team be willing to ante up more for him on draft day? Maybe. Worth the wait plus it shows Steelers resolve and that they control the situation.
If a deal still doesn't come along that you like, then you go into training camp with him. You take the hit on the salary cap regardless whether he is on your team or not. You had plans on going forward without him anyway so no big deal. If he shows up, then you have to pay. This is where the financial hit is now real for the Steelers. If Brown says that he won't play, then you don't have to pay him. If he does play, he may bitch and moan but he still has an ego and will do his best. Just have to live with the distraction. Eventually, his teammates would have turned on him and duct-taped his sorry a$$ to a chair in the closet.
As Steeler fans, we are pi$$ed that we got so little in return. It hits home in a more direct way and the pain is now. However, the real pain is longer term for the Steelers as an organization and for the League. The Steelers have given in to a malcontent and have helped to write the playbook on how to win in negotiations with a Team and the League. The Steelers and the League needed to look long term and big picture as well.
Extremely disappointed in the Steelers if this is all true.
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If the market with "many other HIGHER offers" dissapeared because they couldn't meet his contract demands, that means there was no realistically viable market for him.
You are just wrong here in your description of the market.
If Bryce Harper was willing to sign for the League Minimum, you would of had all 30 teams fighting to death for him. But he wasnt willing to do that, so only a handful really got involved.
You can't separate his contract demands from the market. You just flat out cant.
The Market for him was just a really small one. There is no ifs, ands, or buts about that.
Except his contract demands only came out last week. For the past month when he was being shopped, there was a big market for him. Agent Drew made a counter play to stick another one to the Steelers after they saw how high the market was and how terrible the teams were. Steelers tried to play hard ass by not letting AB and Drew involved in the trade talks....so AB used social media to insert himself into trade talks.
No, they didn't. His contract demands are what was the driving force behind EVERYTHING.
This was never about "respect" it was always about $$$$$$$.
You can not separate the markets. You just can't.
Well it may not be that much of a precedent. In the new CBA, I suspect the NFLPA will want to deal with the Franchise and Transiton tags, and definitely go after guaranteed money. That is the big issue, with the difference in potential guaranteed money, a $60 million contract for one player could be completely different for another.
Then again, how weak and incompetent the NFLPA has been, if Goodell uses the "we won't test for pot" chip, they can cram anything down the players throats.
Market = who was involved from day 1 at any point and to who was involved on trade day. You don't have to be involved the entire time.
If you want to put other parameters to it, have at it. I'm done.
They should guarantee contracts and look at how the NHL does things. They allow this mess by not guaranteeing contracts.
They also need to increase fines for holdouts and make it black and white, not with silly wording.
There is no other way to put it.
Everyone in the world would have wanted him if you was willing to work for 500 grand a year. He wanted a massive contract and even more specifically, he wanted a ton of guaranteed money.
That stuff wasn't new. That was known before his antics.
Well said. Brown was worth more than a third and a fifth. Not sure how you can argue that. See Bryant
A good deal would have been to trade first rounds and get a third. This deal is awful
The Raiders are the ones making a mistake here. Brown is now thinking he can get anything he wants, that isn't going to play well going forward. Frankly knowing that it is only a 5th this year and 3rd next, and we take the cap hit anyway I would have rather seen the Steelers say Brown is off the market-either he can be a Steeler next year or or he can sit out the next three years without pay. Then we can see what a 34 year old WR can get on the open market. As far as I am concerned Brown and Bell can both suck it. It is a privilege to be a Steeler not a right.
The Steelers were in the drivers seat , not ab.
He’s under contract .
Getting a new deal for him wasn’t the Steelers job.
Yes
It was clown shoes.
Essentially we gave him away for a 5th round pick more than martavis Bryant .
We snookered the raiders on that trade and they depants the Stiller’s on this one.
There is no spin.
If the Stiller’s could have gotten a higher draft pick they would have made that deal.
Letting the diva dictate terms was the height of mismanagement
If a player is willing to sit out/quit and earn no money, they always have the upper hand. Very few if anybody thought Bell was that stupid....but he showed everybody he was. Nobody is willing to spend high compensation on Brown without any guarantee. He's even crazier than Bell....so other teams just chose to be safe.
Very similar to my feelings on life. If somebody wants to kill you, and is willing to lose their life over it, there is nothing you can do about it, consider yourself dead.
The Stillers have, indeed, been the masters of a strategy that is guaranteed to bite you in the ass in the end. There is a reason that every year, year after year after year, the Stillers start the off season with the least or close to the least amount of money available on the salary cap. There's a reason that the Stillers are never a player on the free agent market, even when there are players out there that could be difference makers for a team that was close to a championship. And that's because the Stillers are masters at prioritizing the short term over the long term.
If you want to know how a top level organization does it, look at the Patriots. They almost never push off salary money on to future years by restructuring deals. The Stillers had more dead money potential in restructuring Antonio Brown's contract, dead money potential that has now come home to roost, than the Patriots have for every single player on their roster combined, because the Patriots basically refuse to restructure contracts like that. The most potential dead money on any one contract that the Patriots have restructured is on Tom Brady's contract, and it's less than $1.5 million total. And the Patriots aren't getting rid of Tom Brady.
That's why the Patriots don't put up with malcontents like Brown. They can get rid of guys who cause problems like him with little or no financial repercussions. The Stillers can't. It's caused them all sorts of salary cap problems in the past, and it's now forced them to take a substandard trade and incur huge cap implications, because they have "mastered" doing something that in the long run is really, really stupid.
Where are people getting that the 3rd round pick is in 2020? Every source I’ve checked - postgazette, ESPN, SI, CBS, all say both picks are this year. What’s your source for that info?
This isn’t a great trade or look for the Steelers, but pushing the pick to 2020 would have been worse. I’m usually one who applauds players getting money that they deserve and the Steelers offer less guaranteed money than almost any other franchise normally, but the way Brown went about this is sickening. Even worse how some in the national media are defending him.
As a Steeler fan, there is just no positive spin other than this cancer is off the team. We did not get anywhere near adequate value for him because he poisoned the well then took a gigantic smash in it. He’s basically shown any super star they can follow this blueprint.
This isn’t a great trade or look for the Steelers, but pushing the pick to 2020 would have been worse. I’m usually one who applauds players getting money that they deserve and the Steelers offer less guaranteed money than almost any other franchise normally, but the way Brown went about this is sickening. Even worse how some in the national media are defending him.
As a Steeler fan, there is just no positive spin other than this cancer is off the team. We did not get anywhere near adequate value for him because he poisoned the well then took a gigantic smash in it. He’s basically shown any super star they can follow this blueprint.
Since there was really no hard deadline, it is not like they were up against a specific date, and had to trade him this weekend, and since AB sabotaged the Buffalo deal, the Steelers allowed AB and his agent negotiate a deal with Oakland up front, then settled for that deal. What the Steelers should have done, and yes this would be completely vindictive but they would regain some control, the Steelers should have walked away from that deal at the last moment. Then called up Rosenhaus and said "do we have your attention now?" And the Steelers should have then said, you guys deal with who you want but we want at least this....and name a package, and then have them figure it out.
You don’t fire him.... just call him what he is: DUMB... like his grandfather.
Buffalo was not trading the #9 overall pick for Brown straight up, no way anyone is that stupid. Maybe through a bunch of other machinations the Steelers would’ve ended up with that pick, but they would’ve had to add a lot more to the deal than just Brown.
When this started I thought they would be able to get a 2nd rounder for him, but that went south quickly. I think they ended up getting just about all they could at this point.
The only thing AB and his agent would have negotiated with Oakland was his new salary/contract, they wouldn’t have negotiated a single thing w/r to the trade between the Steelers and Raiders. The fact that the Steelers ended up giving AB away for a less than modest return seems to mean they were most interested in 2 things, not paying AB his $2.5 mil roster bonus and putting this whole ordeal behind them. I think there was a very good chance they could have gotten a better return if they were willing to wait.
I’d like to hear Colbert try and spin this. He was so adamant about getting a first rd pick. To say he caved is an under statement.
I don’t think he ever said he wanted a first round pick. He just said he wasn’t going to settle for a below value pick, or wasn’t going to just give him away. Which of course is exactly what he ended up doing.
They had leverage, specifically to put him on the shelf and told to rot until someone came with a legitimate deal. It seems increasingly clear, AB had made Tomlin look like a buffoon at the end of season and with those insulting videos with Harrison. So keeping him around was not an alternative, even if it was to keep him on ice. The Steelers have staked a lot on having Tomlin continue to appear a legitimate, relevant coach; remember, they are about the money, but also this grand social crusade too. I have to think Tomlin also insisted that this guy had to go, at any cost. Otherwise, they acted too rash; 2.5m is really nothing. A team would have come to them with better terms, say, after the draft if things hadn't fallen their way. But the Steelers were in no mood to let the circus linger.
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