It probably won’t be too much longer until wide receiver Antonio Brown is a former member of the Pittsburgh Steelers as the team is expected to trade him within the next two weeks. Brown’s very confident that he’ll be dealt very soon as well and he said as much during his recent sit-down interview with Jeff Darlington of ESPN when asked what would happen if the Steelers don’t trade him.
“Why wouldn’t they not trade me?” Brown asked back to Darlington. “They’ve got to pay me $2.5 million on March 17th. If I invoice you March 17 $2.5 million that you got to pay me, would you pay it, or you get somebody else to pay it? So that’s pretty much what’s good for their business.”
Brown is essentially right as it’s very likely that the Steelers want him off their roster prior to having to pay him the $2.5 million roster bonus he’s due on March 17, the fifth day of the new league year. While Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert has indicated a few times this past week that the roster bonus date for Brown isn’t a hard deadline for the team to trade the disgruntled wide receiver, it’s likely he’ll be dealt by then just the same.
“No, I mean our decision, at that point he is due a roster bonus, but if you decide to pay that roster bonus, chances are that player’s probably staying with you,” Colbert said on Wednesday during an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio when asked if the March 17 date is part of the equation when it comes to the decision to trade Brown. “So, can you move things and do different things? Yes, but you know, again, and Drew’s [agent Drew Rosenhaus] been great, we’ve been open and honest with each other. We both understand that this might be best for everybody and we’ll go about it in a very positive manner. And if it works for both his side and our side, beautiful. If it doesn’t, it has to benefit us.”
Brown also knows that the Steelers likely want him out of their proverbial hair sooner rather than later so that as an organization they can move forward without hopefully having the wide receiver serving as any kind of distraction.
“I think at this point they don’t want the negativity to be held up over their head,” Brown told Darlington. “They want to start a fresh offseason with no bad blood, so their team can just focus on football, no distraction from many player. So I think they’ll get it done.”
If, however, the Steelers aren’t able to trade Brown by March 17, he’ll gladly accept the $2.5 million roster bonus payment from them just the same.
“But I got a nice Boomin’ from Boomin’ LLC put together and the Steelers a nice invoice for that $2.5,” Brown told Darlington.
