I’m not the biggest Antonio Brown fan. The only person I despise more is Ben Roethlisberger (more on him in a moment).
I’m also not going to be one of those knuckleheads who says that my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers need to trade Antonio Brown. In fact, there are several reasons why the Steelers would be stupid to.
When he draws double teams, it allows cats like JuJu Smith-Schuster to get off. Because of the double-teams Brown got, JuJu led the team with 111 catches, and 1,426 yards. Vance McDonald also caught 50 passes. Ditto for James Conner.
Oh, and Brown STILL managed to snag 104 balls for 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns. In other words, Brown still found ways to dominate a football game.
There is also a financial reason for Brown not to be traded. Dude counts $22 million against the cap — $21 million if traded. That’s too much dead money for the Steelers to carry if they do not get at least adequate trade compensation.
In other words, this is the ultimate lose-lose situation for the Steelers.
This means the team brass will have to make Brown and Big Ben (and head coach Mike Tomlin) sit down in a room — preferably one with no windows — and work it out. After all, Ben would likely suffer from a Brown trade — and depending on the trade destination, so would Brown himself.
I’ve said it once before (including earlier in this rant), and I’ll say it again: I think Big Ben is a TERRIBLE leader. If he would take a page from Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and the other all-time greats, this situation would not become as dire as it is.
But y’all know what they say in football: you never, EVER trade a franchise quarterback — especially if he is a sure-fire Hall of Famer…
Categories: NFL
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