AFC Notes: Browns, Patriots, Steelers

Browns

• Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com offers a behind the scenes look into how the Odell Beckham Jr trade with the Giants came to be. 
• According to Cabot, Browns GM John Dorsey called Giants GM Dave Gettleman last Monday asked if he’d be willing to trade Beckham. After Gettleman said Beckham was available, trade negotiations were “fast and furious”, says Cabot.
• The Browns reportedly put together five trade scenarios involving Beckham with all of them including Cleveland’s No. 17 overall pick. 
• Cabot says Duke Johnson and Emmanuel Ogbah, who have been the subject of recent trade rumors, never came up in this talks. 
• Cabot reports that the Dorsey called to ask for Beckham happened to be the same day the Giants lost Landon Collins to the Redskins and New York “needed a save” which led to Jabrill Peppers coming up in trade talks. Gettleman was reportedly adamant about acquiring Peppers in the deal to make up for the loss of Collins and while the Brownd didn’t want to move, they also weren’t going to let this be a deal breaker. 
• As for Beckham’s contract, Cabot mentions that it’s possible the Browns could be open to re-doing his contract, but they want to get him in the building first. 

Patriots

• Ben Volin writes that if the Patriots wanted to gain some cap space, one option would be to restructure and extend QB Tom Brady‘s contract. Volin mentions that the Patriots can give Brady a three-year deal with a $21 million signing bonus and minimum $1.15 million salary, which increases his salary from $15 million to $22 million while decreasing his cap figure from $27 million to $20 million.
• It’s also worth mentioning that New England would gain $10 million of cap room if TE Rob Gronkowski retires. 
• Volin believes the Patriots still want K Stephen Gostkowski back, but he’s likely trying to top the $4.3 million annual average of his last contract.

Steelers

Le’Veon Bell explained his thinking in not agreeing to the contract the Steelers offered him last year.

“The [acverage per year] was fine. The three-year cash flow is fine. But you’ve got to give me some middle ground,” Bell said, per Jeremy Fowler. “[The Steelers] tried to give me no leeway on that, take it or leave it … At the end of the day, I wanted to go where it would make me happy and have the guaranteed money, no matter what happens to me. I’ve seen what happened to [Steelers linebacker] Ryan Shazier [who might never play again after missing most of the past two seasons with a spinal injury], and I’ve seen that with my own eyes. I have to protect myself. The owners are protecting themselves, I have to do the same thing. Any other team and it would have been entirely fine. But the way [the Steelers] structure it and the way I am, I simply can’t rock with it. The way the Rams did it [with Todd Gurley‘s contract] was perfect, Cardinals with Davis Johnson, Zeke [Elliott] will probably kill.”