With a deal now in place to trade Antonio Brown to the Raiders, the Steelers will head into NFL free agency Wednesday with a new hole at wide receiver.
That was not unexpected, of course, given everything that has happened with Brown in the past three months. But the reaction to the deal, especially among fans, has been one of outrage.
How, after all, could the Steelers give up a top-five receiver in the league, take a $21.2 million salary cap hit for him not being on the roster, and get just third- and fifth-round draft picks in return?
After all, just a year before, Steelers fans had chanted "MVP" at Brown as he was helped off the field in the first half of a December game against New England after suffering a calf injury. He had compiled an NFL-record six consecutive 100-catch seasons. He had owned the town.
Now, it's doubtful he would be welcome in any establishment in the city.
THE ANATOMY OF A DEAL
Trading players with multiple years remaining on their contracts is typically not something that happens in the NFL. After all, if a team signs a player to a multi-year deal with a significant amount of signing bonus money, it intends for the player to be on its roster for most or all of that contract.
Such was the case when the Steelers extended Brown before the 2017 season, giving him a four-year, $68-million contract that included a $19-million signing bonus.
Brown had one year remaining on his deal at the time that extension happened, but he had already made it known the previous year he wanted a new deal.
Should the Steelers have known in 2017 this current deal would blow up in their face? Hindsight on that is certainly 20-20, but they assumed Brown would be a happy camper. After all, they had torn up his rookie contract after just two years and gave him a five-year, $42-million deal when he was a virtual nobody in league circles.
Brown certainly outplayed that contract, catching 100 or more passes in every season from 2013 on, a six-year streak he'll take with him to Oakland.
Then, in the 2018 offseason, needing to free up some salary cap space, the Steelers doubled down on Brown. They converted $6.96 million in 2018 salary and a $6 million roster bonus to a signing bonus, clearing $9.72 million in cap space.
It's something the Steelers have done dozens of times over the years. They don't structure big signing bonuses into their initial contracts so they have the flexibility to do this. But this time, it blew up in their face, as Brown's 2019 salary cap hit ballooned to $22.165 million once another roster bonus of $2.5 million was factored into the equation later this week.
Had Brown stayed, the Steelers likely would have restructured him again to lower that cap hit. His remaining salaries of $11.3 million in 2020 and $12.5 million in 2021 were structured to make that possible.
But, as we've since learned, Brown wanted more.
THE CHANGE
So what happened?
Receivers got paid in free agency and in extensions last year.
Sammy Watkins signed a three-year, $48-million deal with Kansas City last offseason that included a $21-million signing bonus and $30 million in guaranteed money. His best season would be considered an off year for Brown.
Then, Odell Beckham Jr. got $90 million over five years with a $20 million signing bonus and $65 million guaranteed. There were other big-money deals handed out just before the season began to players such as Khalil Mack and Aaron Donald. Quarterback Kirk Cousins got a fully-guaranteed deal from the Vikings, something that was a benchmark in the NFL.
Brown, like Le'Veon Bell, took notice of the money being thrown around, specifically the guaranteed money.
Bell had options. He was sitting out training camp after the Steelers had placed the franchise tag on him for the second year in a row. Rather than report and play for a guaranteed $14.5 million, Bell continued his holdout and never played a down for the Steelers in 2018, opting to take the risk the team wouldn't tag him again and he'd reach free agency, something he will do Wednesday.
But for Brown, he had four years remaining on a deal he had signed just a year before. He was stuck. But he wanted more money.
Brown knew he couldn't go to the Steelers and ask for more money. They had just extended him. And he knew if he asked for a trade or to be released, they would simply laugh in his face.
So he made a business decision. He began to act out.
Now, to be clear, Brown hadn't exactly always been a model teammate in the past. He posted Mike Tomlin's postgame speech following a 2017 playoff win in Kansas City live on social media. He had been late to meetings. He had acted out on the sideline, yelling at teammates or coaches.
But he had always performed at a high level on the field. So the team gave him more leeway than it would others. It's something all teams do with star players.
Brown, however, ramped up his poor behavior in 2018.
He suffered a quad injury at training camp. After watching Brown be disruptive in practice while he was sitting out, signing autographs for fans and mugging for cameras while practice was ongoing -- which caused plenty of distraction -- Tomlin sent Brown home to rest and continue his rehab.
Brown was gone for a week, showing up on social media posts in Miami, certainly not what Tomlin had in mind.
Then, after a loss to Kansas City in Week 2, Brown blew off a mandatory team meeting the next day. Tomlin fined him, but any fine the coach could levy on his star receiver was simply a drop in the bucket for a player also making as much, if not more, money off the field than on it.
Other issues arose during the season as Brown continued to do things his own way. But he had always been a little different. And as long as the on-field play wasn't affected, the Steelers continued to give him some leeway.
And while all of that was happening, second-year receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster began to emerge from Brown's shadow.
Don't misunderstand, Smith-Schuster was benefitting from the double coverage Brown was receiving. He was the first to say that multiple times throughout the season.
Ben Roethlisberger, however, didn't help matters after a 24-17 loss in Denver Nov. 25, saying on his radio show he wished he had thrown to Smith-Schuster four times in a row at the goal line late in the game.
Brown took that as a slight, as he did Roethlisberger's statements about the final play, saying Brown ran a route too flat. Roethlisberger was intercepted on the play -- by a defensive tackle -- but film showed that had the fourth-down pass not been tipped at the line, it also would not have gotten to Brown, who had, indeed, run the route too flat.
But again, Brown's play on the field was unaffected, as was his on-field relationship with Roethlisberger.
In fact, in what would be his final game with the Steelers, Brown had an all-time performance, catching 14 passes for 185 yards and two touchdowns working against double coverage all day in New Orleans, including Pro Bowl corner Marshon Lattimore.
That, however, wasn't enough to help the Steelers win, as the Saints benefitted from a pair of questionable pass interference penalties and a late Smith-Schuster fumble, allowing New Orleans to sneak out of the Superdome with a 31-28 win.
The loss dropped the Steelers to 8-6-1 and they no longer held their playoff fate in their own hands. They needed to beat the Bengals in Week 17 at home and get help to earn their fifth-consecutive playoff berth.
At a team walkthrough Wednesday morning, everyone was testy because of that fact. The Steelers had been 7-2-1 and in command of the AFC North. Two weeks earlier, they had beaten the Patriots, their boogeyman, in a game at Heinz Field to perhaps right the ship after a three-game losing streak.
But the loss in New Orleans stung. The Steelers had played well offensively and defensively, and lost.
And early in that Wednesday morning walkthrough as the Steelers were putting in their package for the Bengals, Brown ran the wrong route. Roethlisberger, who along with some other veteran players rarely participated in the morning practice sessions, stopped the play and told the team to do it again.
According to a source, the quarterback also said if Brown couldn't run the play correctly, the team needed to get someone on the field who could. Roethlisberger was irritated because the team had just gone over the plays in a team meeting and Brown had still run the wrong route.
Brown responded with an expletive and tossed the football at the feet of the quarterback. But later in the day, both players were at the afternoon practice, Roethlisberger standing with the offensive linemen and quarterbacks, as he usually does when he's not practicing, Brown off to the side, chatting with corner Joe Haden when the first-team defense wasn't on the field.
And, according to multiple sources, Brown and Roethlisberger spoke that day, leaving everyone to believe the issue had been smoothed over.
But Brown had told Tomlin he was dealing with some soreness in his legs. So after giving him a "veterans day off" on Wednesday afternoon, Tomlin had to add him to the injury report the next day with a leg issue when Brown called off.
Wanting to call Brown's bluff, the Steelers scheduled an MRI for Brown Friday. The receiver failed to show for it. Tomlin called him and got no answer. So did team president Art Rooney II with the same result.
And when Brown skipped the team's walkthrough Saturday morning and continued to refuse their calls, the Steelers decided they'd had enough. Brown wasn't going to play against the Bengals.
Brown's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, contacted Tomlin Sunday morning and said his client was ready to return to the team. Tomlin declined the offer, saying Brown had missed too much time and he would not play.
Brown showed up before the game. He and Tomlin spoke briefly on the field before the Steelers' lackluster 16-13 win. Brown was on the sideline in street clothes but left before halftime.
Since that time, he went on a scorched earth attack on social media and in a pair of television interviews, blaming Roethlisberger, Tomlin, GM Kevin Colbert and Rooney for his actions. His behavior bordered on the bizarre. But his goal was obvious. He wanted out of Pittsburgh and was willing to damage his image to make that happen.
Then, he officially asked for a trade. The Steelers had been silent to that point. But Rooney, Colbert and capologist Omar Khan traveled to Florida in February to meet with Brown and Rosenhaus.
Rooney wanted to know more about the issue and where things had gone off the rails. But the motive behind that meeting was clear. Tomlin did not make the trip. The team was ready to move on from Brown, as well.
THE TRADE
After telling Brown that day in South Florida they would try to trade him if the deal made sense for the Steelers, things began to move rather quickly. A day later, Colbert met with the media in Pittsburgh in a scheduled pre-NFL Scouting Combine press conference.
Brown's status dominated the conversation.
At the time, Colbert said he had no intention of giving Brown away. The Steelers would expect a very good return if they dealt Brown.
But everyone knew they were dealing from a position of weakness. Brown was due a $2.5-million roster bonus March 17. And writing him a check for $2.5 million would be a bitter pill to swallow for a player who, as Tomlin had told his team before the game against the Bengals, quit on them.
By week's end, however, Colbert said in a national interview he had received three calls about Brown. By the following Monday, at least two others had joined the fray with interest.
But some other teams, after talking about the possibility internally, had decided Brown wasn't worth the trouble -- and the new contract he was going to demand as part of the deal. The offers weren't close to what the Steelers initially wanted, a first-round draft pick and more, whether that be a player or additional draft picks.
The Steelers lowered their asking price to a first-round selection. Only a few teams were still interested at that point, with the Bills jumping into the fray early last week with a swap of picks being the deal.
The Steelers would receive the ninth-overall selection and Buffalo's second-round pick, 40th overall, in return for Brown, the Steelers' first-round pick (20) and second-round selection (52). The Steelers also wanted another mid-round pick, but the teams had largely agreed on the early part of the trade to the point the Steelers involved Rosenhaus in the deal.
Rosenhaus went to Brown with the idea of playing for the Bills, who did have the cap space to give him a new deal. But Brown didn't want to go to Buffalo. Given that choice, he said he would walk away from the game.
The Bills deal, which looked promising Thursday, was off later that evening.
That put the Raiders in prime bargaining position. To that point, Buffalo's deal was better than anything being offered. The Raiders have four of the top 35 picks in this year's draft and were offering at least the 35th pick -- an early second-round selection -- or possibly the 27th pick if the Steelers were willing to move some picks around later.
But when the Bills dropped out, the Raiders adjusted their offer, knowing they had the best remaining offer on the table.
The Steelers continued to ask for more, but the Raiders held firm on their final offer of a third-round pick (66th) and fifth-round selection (141). The Steelers continued to work the phones.
But nobody would offer more than what Oakland was putting out there. And even if they could better the deal, the fact Brown had nixed the deal to Buffalo left some teams wary of being used as a negotiating ploy. Others knew they couldn't afford the salary bump Brown wanted.
So, late Saturday night, the Steelers agreed to ship Brown to Oakland for those early third- and fifth-round picks, washing their hands of the situation. Brown and Rosenhaus, as part of the deal, had worked out a new three-year, $50-million deal with the Raiders that guaranteed him just over $30 million and can go up even more with incentives.
The deal will become official Wednesday at 4 p.m. when the new league year begins.
THE AFTERMATH
So what happens now?
Some have suggested that while the deal has been agreed to, it doesn't become official until Wednesday. Therefore, without outright saying it, they are suggesting the Steelers or Raiders could back out.
That's highly unlikely to happen, however, as it would paint the team that pulls out in a bad light around the league. No team would deal with the offending team in good faith in the future.
Once the deal with the Bills, one that clearly would have favored the Steelers, fell through, other teams knew the Steelers had little bargaining power.
So did the Steelers get fleeced, as some have suggested? It depends on how you look at it.
"Fleeced" is when you make a deal that clearly doesn't make sense from any standpoint, such as Oakland sending a third-round pick to the Steelers last spring for troubled receiver Martavis Bryant.
The Raiders, in that case, had been negotiating against themselves.
In this case, the Steelers wanted to be done with Brown so that they could move on to other issues, such as Roethlisberger's contract extension and making a move with linebacker Bud Dupree before his $9.2-million salary becomes fully guaranteed at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
It's no coincidence Roethlisberger's deal, which has largely been negotiated, has not been finalized at this point. It's highly likely the quarterback wanted to wait to see what was going to happen with Brown before he signed his name on the dotted line, especially after Brown's seek-and-destroy mission on Roethlisberger's leadership skills over the past three months.
Could the Steelers have gotten more for Brown had they continued to hold onto him? Potentially. The market had continued to change over the past couple of weeks.
But after two weeks of talking to teams interested in acquiring Brown, they had a pretty good idea of what the market was going to be. And the longer they held onto Brown, the more they ran the risk of him starting to act out again -- something that had slowed considerably since his meeting in Florida with Rooney, when the owner told him in no uncertain terms he needed to knock it off.
Everyone in the league, however, knew this marriage was over.
Rosenhaus said as much Sunday on SiriusXM, equating this whole thing to a divorce.
"We had nine good years in Pittsburgh, but it was time," Rosenhaus said.
The Steelers obviously felt the same, to the tune they were willing to eat an unprecedented $21.2-million cap hit in 2019 to make it happen.
The Steelers have opened a hole at receiver and, when the two draft picks they've acquired are slotted in, the million dollars they save by not having Brown on the roster will become a net loss of about $60,000.
But Brown also will be 31 this summer. At some point, he's going to start slowing down. It hasn't happened yet, but Father Time is unbeaten.
And just as he wore out his welcome in Pittsburgh, the same could happen rather quickly with the Raiders.
In the meantime, the Steelers have an opportunity to change their locker room. While Brown was the obvious outlier in that room, the Steelers can now point to this situation and tell players in the future, we can win with you or without you.
Not every player has the bargaining power Brown did. And not every player is going to be willing to take the PR hit Brown has done to make something like this happen. While Brown has made a lot of money off the field, his bizarre behavior hasn't helped his off-field image.
We'll see if he continues to be a national spokesman, or if those offers dry up given everything that occurs.
For the Steelers, their reputation has taken a hit, as well. Pittsburgh has been a spot in the NFL where other players have wanted to come and other teams have attempted to emulate.
That could still be the case. This has been, after all, a unique situation, just like Bell's situation is one that hasn't happened often.
The two are related, but not in the way some have tried to paint it. The inmates haven't wanted out of Pittsburgh simply to get out.
Just last week, Ramon Foster accepted less money than he could have gotten on the open market to stay in Pittsburgh. They wanted out simply to get paid.