AROUND THE NFL
Steelers agree to ‘move on’ and trade Antonio Brown ... Behaviour could deter teams ... Concordia tackle Simba could get drafted, says Kiper ... Ready to play some tag?
One of the most productive wide receivers in NFL history is on the trade market.
But of course he is. Seeing as Antonio Brown figuratively had already burned, then nuked, all those iron bridges that could have taken him back over the rusty rivers that weave through downtown Pittsburgh, it came as no surprise Tuesday to learn the wide receiver and the Steelers have jointly agreed to part ways.
ESPN reported that Brown and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, had a “cordial” meeting Tuesday morning in Florida with Steelers owner Art
Rooney II, executive Omar Kahn and GM Kevin Colbert. “Everyone agreed the trade will be for the best,” ESPN’s anonymous source said.
The following tweet by Brown broke the news: “Had a great meeting with Mr. Rooney today. (We) discussed a lot of things and we cleared the air on several issues! We both agreed that it is time to move on, but I’ll always have appreciation and gratitude toward the Rooney family and @steelers organization! #CallGod #Boomin.”
Brown, 30, did not exactly wait before going on Instagram to stump for his cause on the trade market. Before the news broke, he said if your favourite NFL team has “guaranteed money, they want to get to know me and work with me, tell them to call me.”
After the big news broke Brown added, “If (you’re) one of those teams out there where the camaraderie bad, the energy bad, the players (are) haters, I don’t want to play there. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to waste no time.”
See, that’s the rub. While Brown unquestionably is one of the most prolific catchers of footballs in NFL annals, he’d be the first to tell you that. He has grown this decade into one of the most self-absorbed pro athletes on record, seemingly incapable any more of putting his own statistical wants and needs behind his team’s.
To that point, Brown walked out on the Steelers just days before their final regular-season game, one they had to win to have any chance of making the playoffs. Why’d Brown do that? Because the Steelers superstar quarterback Brown obviously deeply resents, Ben
Roethlisberger, told him to run a lazy route over again. Or some such minor thing.
Brown then refused to return the calls of everyone, from head coach Mike Tomlin
to Roethlisberger to even his closest teammates. He also refused to attend treatment sessions for his leg injuries.
When four days later he showed up hours before the game, apparently expecting to play, Tomlin told him not to bother getting dressed; he wouldn’t play. Brown watched Pittsburgh’s defeat of Cincinnati only until halftime, before bolting Heinz Field in a huff.
By many accounts Brown is as hard a worker, both in the off-season and in training room, as any receiver in the game today. And although he owns a slew of league and Steelers receiving records, the ninth-year pro gradually became a monstrous pain in the butt for the Steelers.
He’d sulk when Roethlisberger wouldn’t throw him the ball as often as he felt warranted, to the point of refusing on at least a couple of occasions to join the celebrations of touchdowns scored by teammates, or berating offensive assistant coaches in full public view.
Brown became the sultan of sulk. Now he badly wants out of Pittsburgh, as he had made crystal clear since that Dec. 30 season finale.
Look, some team out there believes it can appease Brown, work with Brown and make Brown happy enough to not be a major pain or distraction. We’ll probably know which club wants him most within two weeks.
So Brown, in the end, will get his way. If that perturbs you, you’re not alone.
And if it still confuses you why the Steelers are appeasing him, consider what former long-time NFL executive Joe
Banner tweeted about Brown, just a couple hours before Tuesday’s news broke: “If you had a good plan on how to get traded, it would be the opposite of everything he is doing.”
Late 2010s societal logic now applies to the NFL, too.
CANADIAN TO BE DRAFTED?
Long-time ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. held a conference call Tuesday to discuss this year’s prospects.
I asked Kiper if any of the four Canadian collegians invited to last month’s U.S. allstar games — defensive end Joel Van Pelt of Calgary, wide receiver Alexandre Savard of
Laval, defensive end Mathieu
Betts of Laval and offensive tackle Maurice Bibaku Simba of Concordia — stands out to him.
“Yeah, the Simba kid, that’s the one that got the attention,” Kiper said.
Simba is 6-foot 7 and weighs 328 pounds — the classic body size of an NFL OT. He has not been invited to the NFL scouting combine next week in Indianapolis.
“You look at the size and the ability he has once he gets some coaching,” Kiper said. “He could be a guy that goes in the late rounds and has a chance to be a developmental offensive lineman. I think he would be a guy that would fall into that category from that group (of Canadians).”
In its most recent rankings, the CFL Scouting Bureau rates Simba 11th among Canadian prospects for that league’s draft in May.
NFLDraftScout.com ranks Simba the No. 50 offensive tackle prospect for this year’s NFL draft.
TAG WINDOW OPENS
On Tuesday, the annual two-week period began for NFL clubs to apply a franchise or transition tag on a player with four or more accrued seasons of experience, whose current contract is set to expire at the turn of the league year on March 13. The deadline is Tuesday, March 5 and 4 p.m.