National Post (National Edition)
Say hello to the Oakland Browns
The Oakland Raiders? More like the Oakland Browns this offseason.
And the Detroit Lions? More like the Detroit Ex-patriots.
NFL’S pre-free agency period kicked off Monday with its usual spate of eye-popping, prematurely consummated deals involving some of the top available players.
First, the Browns. That is, the Antonio and Trent Browns.
After voluntarily trading away two of the best veteran players on their roster a season ago — edge rusher Khalil Mack (to Chicago) and receiver Amari Cooper (to Dallas) — the Raiders on consecutive days have arranged deals to acquire (a) perennial Pro Bowl receiver Antonio Brown via a trade with Pittsburgh, and (b) the top free-agent-to-be offensive tackle, New England’s Trent Brown, in a pending free-agency signing.
A two-day window opened at midday Monday in which agents representing players set to become unrestricted free agents on Wednesday can start negotiating with other teams. Not even 10 minutes into that window, multiple reports said Trent Brown already had agreed to terms with the Raiders — for four years at $66 million, with $36.75 million fully guaranteed.
Does anyone think such a contract got negotiated from start to finish in less than 10 minutes? Exactly, of course not.
Indeed, teams and player agents clearly are once again illegally jumping the gun on the legal jumping-the-gun window in which clubs, by NFL rule, are “permitted to contact and enter into contract negotiations with the certified agents of players who will become unrestricted free agents” at 4 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, when their 2018 contracts expire at the start of the new league year.
But clubs are not supposed to agree to final terms with players in this two-day window. No deals arrived in that time are official. Thus, no player nor any team could ever complain or protest to the league if the other party ever reneged on one of these tentative agreements.
If the lightning-fast Trent Brown deal with the Raiders is any indication, new Oakland GM Mike Mayock — the former longtime NFL Network talent analyst — is as impatient to build a winning roster as long-suffering Raiders fans.
The Raiders began the week with the seventh largest available room (nearly $59 million) under the league-mandated club salary-cap. Mayock isn’t exactly sitting around waiting to spend it.
Trent Brown, 25, began his pro career in 2015 as a seventh-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers, 244th overall. He started 28 games at right tackle through 2017, before the Niners traded him last April to the Patriots. New England made him the starting left tackle, and Brown protected Brady extremely well, allowing only two QB pressures in 95 dropbacks in the Patriots’ two AFC playoff games, according to the Las Vegas ReviewJournal.
Most free-agency pundits listed him as the prize offensive linemen in this year’s class.
Apparently Mayock, head coach Jon Gruden and the Raiders aren’t done. NFL Network reported Monday the Raiders “are a sleeper team” in the pursuit of pending free agent running back Le’veon Bell, whose career in Pittsburgh is at an end. Bell sat out all of last season after refusing to sign the second consecutive one-year franchise tag the Steelers slapped on him.
He was seeking $15-$16 million per year with a hefty guarantee from whatever club signs him, ESPN reported Monday. The New York Daily News said New York Jets decision-makers were split over whether Bell — one of the league’s most prolific run-and-catch running backs — is worth that much money.
NFL Network said at least half a dozen teams “could be in the mix” for Bell, including the Jets and 49ers.
As for the Lions, with their former Patriots frontoffice exec Bob Quinn (200015) as GM and former Patriots defensive co-ordinator Matt Patricia (2012-17) as head coach, they arranged Monday to add three impact players, two of them Super Bowl winners with the Patriots.
Defensive end Tr e y Flowers — seen universally as the No. 1 defensive free agent available this year — will leave the Patriots and sign with the Lions, according to multiple reports Monday afternoon. His agent arranged a five-year deal with the Lions at $80 million, with $45 million guaranteed.
Receiver Danny Amendola is the other ex-pat the Lions signed. The third impact player the Lions arranged to add before supper hour Monday was slot CB Justin Coleman. NFL Network reported the Lions are prepared to make him the NFL’S top-paid nickel for four years at $36 million. He formerly played in Seattle.