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Brown and Steelers negotiating???

We do but that does not mean he has to play. Since the team is so dependent on him, it's not like he does not hold a decent hand.

If doesn't play then as you said...he will be wasting his 3 "PRIME YEARS" and the Steelers still have control of him for the remaining years he has left on his contract. I just don't see any leverage for Brown. Unless the Rooney's just want to increase his salary out of good faith I think he is screwed. I would also say that if they do rework it I wouldn't increase it to the top 5 either....If the Rooney's redo the way they operate and rework his deal with 3 years remaining then Brown will have to give a little in the process. Of course the way the Steelers have been handing out contracts of late they might just make him the highest paid WR...
 
Steelers can't cut AB. They'd be ****** in dead money. Contracts may not be guaranteed, but some make it tough to dump a player without severe cap ramifications.
 
Steelers can't cut AB. They'd be ****** in dead money. Contracts may not be guaranteed, but some make it tough to dump a player without severe cap ramifications.

nor would they entertain the idea even if they could
 
Here's why. I remember an interview with Dan Rooney in the '90s, in which he basically stated that they (the Steelers) would not conduct themselves that way. They would not ask players to take salary cuts, because they did not want players coming back in the middle of their contracts wanting to renegotiate. I will never forget that. Now, the Steelers, like all teams, have had to succumb to that. It is the way the system is set up. Why shouldn't a player have the right to renegotiate when his leverage is at it's peak, if owners can cut guys after a down year, when their leverage is at it's lowest?

Maybe I should not have said scrap the salary cap. What I meant really is what I would like to see in the NFL is a system more like the NBA in the sense that you can sign your own guys back at higher salaries at less affect to the cap. Something tweaked in that area. So, for example, the Steelers sign Ben to whatever his money plays out to, but only half or something counts against the cap. Only your own guys. You sign someone else's, the full weight of that salary goes to your cap.

Again. He can hold out and try to redo his deal, but if he doesn't play he is wasting his best years and he is still under contract. In the end the players themselves agreed to the current collective bargaining agreement. If they do not like the way it is they should try to change it but they don't. They take their SB's and put it into the bank with a smile as Brown did when he first signed his contract. He knows he signed for more than he was worth at the time. He didn't have to sign a contract that was as long as the one that he did sign, but they both gave and took in the process of working the deal out. In the beginning Brown had the edge. After last season it looks like the Steelers do now.
 
For the record, I blame 99% of awkward situations like this on agents, who often talk clients into horrible long term positions in order to make a few more bucks for themselves right now
 
For the record, I blame 99% of awkward situations like this on agents, who often talk clients into horrible long term positions in order to make a few more bucks for themselves right now

I think it was a great contract for Brown when he signed it....he was coming off of a 750 plus yard season. Steelers had one more year of control of him at a very low price. His 3 year total was just over 2000 yards. So he inked for 5 years. Not horrible. He got a nice SB and isn't playing for peanuts either. I see why Wallace didn't sign it but for Brown it was like hitting the lottery.
 
What happened to that other wr that wanted big money? Oh yeah he got big money somewhere else and then got traded and has turned into mr irrelevant!
 
What happened to that other wr that wanted big money? Oh yeah he got big money somewhere else and then got traded and has turned into mr irrelevant!

That guy got paid, and scored ten TD's last year. Now, he will never be the accomplished WR that Antonio Brown has become, but folks acting like he isn't any good are mistaken. The Steelers made the right decision and chose Brown, that has zero to do with Mike Wallace. Business is business, I'll never get mad at a player for going after the money when it's their turn to get paid.
 
That guy got paid, and scored ten TD's last year. Now, he will never be the accomplished WR that Antonio Brown has become, but folks acting like he isn't any good are mistaken. The Steelers made the right decision and chose Brown, that has zero to do with Mike Wallace. Business is business, I'll never get mad at a player for going after the money when it's their turn to get paid.

They didn't choose Brown until Wallace turned them down. In the end Brown might have signed with Pittsburgh for less. In fact if Wallace stayed Brown might never have gotten the numbers he did. In the end Brown signed for way over his value at the time. He banked the money that set him up for life. He chose to take it. Now he just has 3 more years to play out. Then he can cash in again. If he is lucky he will cash in with 1 year left on his contract....or wait to become a FA after his entire contract runs out. Either way the Burg has him for 3 more years.
 
He was rewarded with a nice contract early on & that was to give him security, and a piece of mind..

It was a very good deal for him & his family. Now live up to it.

Come back in the last year of it and get rewarded again.

He is young enough and will get a chance to get another pay day.

3 years left and he should be ashamed he asking for more money right now.

Are these guys even playing for the love of the game or would they be just as happy playing for a bad team. Not win but getting paid?
 
He was rewarded with a nice contract early on & that was to give him security, and a piece of mind..

It was a very good deal for him & his family. Now live up to it.

Come back in the last year of it and get rewarded again.

He is young enough and will get a chance to get another pay day.

3 years left and he should be ashamed he asking for more money right now.

Are these guys even playing for the love of the game or would they be just as happy playing for a bad team. Not win but getting paid?

As per and consistent with the racehorse business, money never gets lame!
 
I think the Steelers should consider breaking their own rule about negotiating with more than a year left where both they and the player can win and this could have been one of those situations. If they could have extended Brown for two more years and converted base to guaranteed money in a way that kept his cap number fairly low, but put alot of money in his pocket now, that might have worked. If there is any player I would bet on it is AB. I think (God forbid) he could even sustain an injury and still be very good. His game, like Ward, seems to be based upon craftiness, intelligence and unbelievable hands more than physical mismatch. I don't think you should ever say- we won't do- anything. A different model is we hold the contract and we won't negotiate unless it is extremely beneficial to us too.
 
Unfortunately, there are two values at work here.Value of "money" and value of "honor". with out one, there is no other. Some want AB to honor his contract, while others say he is ashamedly under paid. What stops the steelers from honoring his contract to end??? This league is the only one that does NOT give gauranteed contracts. Sign big, but not honor it. Thus the reason of signing bonuses. If contracts were gauranteed, with stipulations of production vs pay, then we would not be having this discussion. At the time of AB contract signing, he though this is the skys the limit deal. NOW he is the sky with no known limit. He wants more. The steelers on the other hand, said hey, we are willing to take the risk and pay you for your production, for this many years looking in advance. If contracts were gauranteed stipilating wage increase with production increase as well as pay decrease with production decrease, then all would be happy. ONLY thing negotiatable, would be the amounts of increase vs decrease. NO more complicated than the hassle contracts being negotiated now. HONOR currently is the big word with AB, miss used or not.



Salute the nation
 
The contract was well negotiated by the Steeelers and Rosenhaus is no dummy. There is a lot of money in the contract, but it was easily dumped if he was a flop. Due to the fact that he was great it is a big saving. Had he just been good, it would have been a tough dilemma. I think terms like honor have to be somewhat removed from these types of things. We will not make an exception because AB is a great player. That would be a big mistake. That would create a slippery slope. However, we will always listen to an initial proposals that could peek our interest in terms of our benefit. If the terms, holdout or "this would make my client a happier player" are raised, the meeting is over. Thank you very much. I actually have no doubt that the Steelers did this already. They met once and discussion ended.
 
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