CUT BY RAIDERS, BROWN BECOMING A PATRIOT ON EVE OF OPENER
ALAMEDA, CALIF. (AP) » Antonio Brown agreed to terms with the New England Patriots hours after the Oakland Raiders cut him, going from the NFL’s cellar to the defending Super Bowl champions on Saturday despite wearing out his welcome with two teams in one offseason. Brown’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, confirmed the agreement to The Associated Press. Brown had been scheduled to earn up to $50 million from Oakland over the three-year deal. Instead, the Patriots guaranteed him $9 million this season, with the potential to earn as much as $15 million. Brown posted a picture of himself in a Patriots uniform on Instagram shortly after ESPN first reported the signing. The post was soon liked by New England receiver Julian Edelman, who already was splitting quarterback Tom Brady’s attention with one troublemaking receiver, Josh Gordon.
A Patriots spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New England opens the season against the Steelers on Sunday night, when they will raise their sixth Super Bowl championship banner. Brown is unlikely to play, but even his presence on the Patriots’ sideline adds a new wrinkle to his tumultuous tenure in Pittsburgh.
A four- time All-Pro who caught 837 passes over nine
seasons with the Steelers, the team tired of Brown’s antics and traded him to Oakland in March. But he never made it onto the field in a Raiders uniform.
Instead of providing them with a marquee star in their final season in Oakland before moving to Las Vegas, Brown gave them months of headaches, from a bizarre foot injury to a fight over his helmet to the blowups this week that ended his career there before it began.
The Raiders granted the disgruntled but talented receiver his Saturday morning, two days before their season opener.
“We just exhausted everything,” Gruden said. “We tried every way possible to make it work. All I’m going to say is, it’s dis
appointing.”
Brown asked for the release after he was upset about his latest team fine over an outburst during practice at general manager Mike Mayock. That fine allowed the Raiders to void more than $29 million in guarantees over the next two years in Brown’s contract if he wasn’t on the team.
The Raiders traded two mid-round draft picks to Pittsburgh for the game’s most prolific receiver and gave him a three-year contract worth $50.1 million that now is void; Brown could still file a grievance to recover the guaranteed money.
The moves on Saturday follow a week in which Brown posted a letter on social media detailing $ 54,000 in fines for missing team activities. ( ESPN reported that he would be fined $215,073 for conduct detrimental to the team.) from playing their game and opening the season at home with the win.
RPI Quarterback George Marinopoulos adds another quality game to his belt, this time tossing for 276 yards, completing 23 passes and throwing for two touchdowns in the win.
Mar i nopoulos also rushed a touchdown in on the day as well.
“Obviously we expect everyone to play to their full potential, and George is one of those guys we expect to be a leader on offense,” said receiver Marc Meislahn. “George is that guy and we always make sure he is the guy to facilitate the ball to all of us and he can even get in the endzone himself, which we saw today as well.”
Meislahn finished with three catches for 46 yards.
RPI totaled 502 yards of offense in the win, 356 of which came through the air. 276 of those passing yards came out of Marinopoulos’ hand, but receiver Vinnie McDonald was responsible for 76 of them on a play in the third quarter that set up a a Meislahn one yard touchdown.
McDonald’s play was set up by a great special teams play as well. A blocked field goal that was recovered by Joey Gutkowski set the Engineers up perfect to strike early in the half.
“Hats off to our defense, top notch defense,” said McDonald. “It was a great blocked field goal that allowed us to run that play.”
RPI carried a 14- 0 lead out of the first quarter thanks to a one yard run by Meislahn and a four yard run by Dylan Burnett.
Allegheny struck in the second quarter with a nine yard pass by quarterback Nazareth Greer to Austin French to cut the RPI lead
in half.
Greer finished the day with 318 yards on 30 completions. Greer utilized his short crossing routes early in the game, allowing his receivers to use their legs and get some yards after the catch.
“Where they had success last year was throwing short and running long,” said Isernia. “We knew that would be something they would do. Our guys are pretty smart, they know that at some point in time they were going to try and take a shot over the top, and our guys were in good position for most of the day.”
RPI Captain John Sadek was one of those smart players in the right place at the right time as he had the lone RPI interception of the game.
RPI went into the half with a 31-7 lead thanks to a one yard Marinopolous pass on the corner post route in the dying seconds of the half and a Sanjay Krishnan
field goal minutes earlier.
From there, the Engineers never looked back.
Another Marinopolous throwing touchdown through the air to Bryce Todd along with the score set up by the flea flicker and a Marinopoulos run put the Engineers at 45-7 at the end of the third quarter.
Allegheny struck back with a six yard rush by Greer before Ryan Skivington took a fumble recovery 100 yards to the house to all but hit the final nail in the coffin.
RPI is back in action Saturday, September 14 when they travel to WPI to once again compete for the Transit Trophy.
“It doesn’t matter the records, when it is a trophy game, it is always going to be one of those grinds,” said Isernia. “It doesn’t matter the record, it doesn’t matter how many points a team scored or anything like that. That’s always a game everyone plays up for.”