Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown can forget about having his contract redone this offseason and according to what general manager Kevin Colbert said Thursday during an interview on Trib Live Radio, he and his agent Drew Rosenhaus can probably forget about trying again next offseason.
“Antonio Brown is under contract and that’s all there is to it,” said Colbert.
Prior to the Steelers preseason game this past Friday night against the Jacksonville Jaguars, it was reported that Rosenhaus was set to meet with the Steelers to discuss Brown’s contract, which won’t be up until after the 2017 season. Judging by the comments that Colbert made Thursday morning, that meeting, if it indeed happened, was probably a very short one.
“Players sign contracts, we expect them to honor those until there’s a year left,” said Colbert. “The only time we’ve gone away from that is with the quarterbacks and we’ve been consistent about going to them with two years left, except for Ben this year. You know Ben didn’t do his until he had one year left.”
The Steelers obviously aren’t going to break tradition for Brown even though he’s arguably one of the best wide receivers currently in the game. The organization has set a precedent that has spanned decades and Colbert has no intentions of changing something that he feels isn’t broken.
“The Steelers have been very consistent with how they do business before I got here, after I got here,” said Colbert.
Now that Colbert has made his unsurprising thoughts on Brown’s contract situation clear, it will be interesting to see what happens next offseason. I won’t be surprised if Brown makes some sort of statement in the form of a holdout next offseason that undoubtedly will wind up being unsuccessful.
Like it or not, Brown’s not going to get a new deal until 2017.
