A few days ago it was reported that the Pittsburgh Steelers expected to have a trade in place for wide receiver Antonio Brown by Friday evening and in essence, that was deemed somewhat of a deadline for teams to get their best trade offers submitted by. With Friday now almost upon us, a Thursday night report from Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette indicates that the Steelers do not appear to have a hard-fast deadline to get a trade of Brown completed by.
According to Dulac’s latest report, the Steelers are still talking with “several” teams who are interested in trading for Brown despite several reports over the course of the last few days stating the contrary. In fact Dianna Russini of ESPN reported on Thursday that the Washington Redskins, Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints have no interest in trading for Brown. Ahead of her report, beat writers who cover the New York Jets, Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos, and Philadelphia Eagles all indicated that the teams they cover are also not interested in trading for Brown.
As of the time of this post, the Oakland Raiders seem like they might be the only team interested in trading for Brown. They are and have been the most logical and likely trading partner for the Steelers for several weeks now as not only do they have the need for a top wide receiver such as Brown, they also have a lot of draft capital to work with in the form of three first-round draft picks and five total selections in the first 66.
The Raiders also have a head coach in Jon Gruden and a quarterback in Derek Carr who could likely handle Brown’s personality. The Raiders also have plenty of salary cap space and could easily give Brown a new deal upon trading for him to make him happy for a while longer.
With the start of the new league year now less than a full week away, the Steelers still have plenty of time to deal Brown before needing to be responsible for paying the $2.5 million roster bonus he’s due on the fifth-day of the new league year. The Steelers obviously don’t have to trade Brown at all if they don’t like the compensation they’re offered as Brown is currently under contract with the team through the 2021 season.
Personally, this latest report by Dulac feels like it was ordered up by Colbert as part of one last-ditch effort to get a better offer for Brown. We’ll see if Brown winds up being traded on Friday, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise if he isn’t and especially if there aren’t any teams looking to deal for the wide receiver.
