Another year another stint of offseason drama for the Pittsburgh Steelers and one of their star players. Last season we had the Le'Veon Bell contract/franchise tag drama, and this season it looks like the next couple months will have a spotlight on drama surrounding star wide receiver Antonio Brown.
Brown is not stranger to headlines as he has been a mainstay in them for the vast majority of the season. Whether it be in lawsuits surrounding his behavior at a vacation condo in Florida, or on the field issues with his teammates Brown has been in the spotlight a lot. That trend continued this past week as Brown missed the Steelers season finale against the Bengals on Sunday with a "leg injury". However, in the last couple of days it has surfaced that Brown did not play because of his absence from practice on both Thursday and Friday of last week following an altercation at Wednesday's practice where Brown was displeased with some of his teammates. According to a source that talked to ESPN's Adam Schefter, Brown was upset about being asked to run a hot read at practice, and that he felt under appreciated. It was also mentioned that the decision to sit Brown was made "close to game time" on Sunday.
Earlier today Ben Roethlisberger was talking on 93.7 the Fan and said that if there was an issue, he certainly didn't see it, and denied the reported "blow-up" by Brown. Later in the day it was reported by CBS Sports NFL insider Jason La Canfora that Antonio Brown has requested that the Steelers trade him. La Canfora also wrote that it was "not a demand but he has asked to be dealt".
Before you get too emotional there is a very LOW possibility of Antonio Brown being traded, and he will be a Pittsburgh Steeler come the start of next season. ESPN's Field Yates put it best on Twitter today by saying "Trading for Antonio Brown makes complete sense for every other NFL team. Trading away Antonio Brown makes zero sense for the Steelers." There are just a few major reasons why this is true.
For one thing, even if the Steelers shopped Brown and traded him out of Pittsburgh they would still owe him $21.1 million next season that would count against the salary cap. That is a big red flag for any team, but especially for a team that didn't use $14.5 million in cap space this season because they saved it for Le'Veon Bell who never showed up. No General Manager would pay a player, especially one of the best in the game $20-plus million to not play for them, no matter what the return is.
Another reason is because of where the Steelers are in terms of personnel. Ben Roethlisberger is in his last couple of years in the league. apart from JuJu Smith-Schuster your wide receiver depth is rough with James Washington struggling and Ryan Switzer & Eli Rogers only being good for a couple short passes a game. Trading Brown would jeopardize throwing away the last years of Ben's career fro reinventing an offense without both Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown. Sure James Conner and Jaylen Samuels look like they could be a dynamic one-two punch in the backfield and the offensive line is one of the best in the league, but you need Brown to make that offense gel the way it did at points this season.
The biggest issue coming out of this doesn't have to do with Brown, but with Mike Tomlin. If Brown was being held out of the game for disciplinary reasons, why would you lie and say he was injured? Why would you protect a player that was being punished? It's not like he thought this story wasn't going to get out is it? This mis-step by Tomlin is the latest in a long line of examples proving he doesn't have a handle on his locker room. By lying, Tomlin let Brown off the hook for the most part when it comes to being responsible for his actions. For those calling for Tomlin to be fired, save your breath because its not happening. However, if the Steelers want to have any chance at another Super Bowl in the Roethlisberger era, Tomlin needs to do a better job at controlling his players and especially his stars.
For now you can expect more headlines about the newest Steelers offseason saga, but one thing is certain, Antonio Brown will not be traded.
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