Antonio Brown Mega Thread (Was: AB is upset he's being fined by the Raiders

This Is Awesome

 

No cash from us this year. His $21 million cap number for us in 2019 was “dead money” due to salary cap rules governing how bonus dollars allocated to future years need to be booked against the cap immediately when a player is cut or traded. Those bonuses were paid out before this offseason.

 

Worse at the moment, but there are some things we can do to clear some space when the new league year starts.

 

I don't recall those reports coming from NE's camp, it's buried some where in these 60 pages on this thread.

At any rate, I don't believe any team knew, I sure don't believe AB would reveal that to NE ahead of time.

I believe that this was a resolved issue that was worked out months ago and a non story until AB renegaded on the terms of the settlement. Then it all became public.

I also don't believe there was any manipulations going on and the fact that AB got himself thrown off 3 teams backs that up. He is just a highly unstable person. He was unhappy in Pittsburgh and Rosenhaus turned it into a positive by getting him a bigger contract which AB quickly ruined. NE jumped at the opportunity believing the Patriot way would set him on the right course, if AB couldn't adapt, he'd be cut. There was very little risk involved for NE and high reward. I don't believe any of this was calculated prior to AB getting released by the Raiders and certainly not while he was still with Pittsburgh. There is zero chance he walked away from more money with the Raiders to go play with NE for less.

At most, Belichick put a call into Rosenhaus as he watched things falling apart in Oakland and told him there's a landing place for AB should he be released. Thats the extent of any tampering, IMO.

 

Go to overthecap.com or spotrac.com and take a look at our cap situation for 2020. We have a lot of high cap numbers on the O and D lines, plus Ben somewhere over $30 million. In addition to expiring contracts, we will likely need to part ways with a few players (like Chick, maybe Barron, maybe Moncrief, etc).

 

Look... like you, I wanted to hold AB’s feet to the fire and make him honor the contract he signed. I thought that he would do what he needed to do to earn his salary and still be motivated to be the same superstar on the field, even if he had problems with some teammates. Like you I thought that the Steelers got fleeced by Rosenhaus, and that the 3rd and 5th were insufficient compensation. I’ve accepted that I was wrong about all of that.

The issue that got AB cut by the Pats was the utterly moronic reaction to the SI story; the intimidation via group text. This action is consistent with the kind of impulsive, destructive behavior we’ve seen in recent years. The threatening of a reporter. The throwing of furniture off a balcony in a fit of rage. Driving 100 MPH in 40 zone (or whatever the numbers were). I’m sure there were others that the Steelers saw in-house. I think it’s reasonable to surmise that Steelers we’re correctly convinced that his behavior had hit a tipping point where they could no longer keep a lid on the cyclone that AB has become, and they needed to part ways and try to get something in return. In another thread you said that the rape allegation was a game changer. It clearly wasn’t a game changer because the Pats moved forward and put him on the field. It wasn’t until he blatantly intimidated an accuser via a group text on the Pats’ watch that they cut him.

While the information was new, the downward spiral in behavior was not. I accept that the Steelers did the right thing and I was wrong in my criticism about how they handled AB last offseason. To me it’s obvious.