Steelers Likely To Trade Antonio Brown By March?

Chris Mortensen reports that there still hasn’t much communication between Antonio Brown and the Steelers in recent days. Brown has reportedly ignored calls from owner Art Rooney and HC Mike Tomlin.

According to Mortensen, the expectation now is that Brown is “more likely to be traded” at the start of the 2019 league year in March.

Mortensen says that the cap hit wouldn’t be a big issue for the Steelers, given that they’ll receive a $14 million cap credit from Le’Veon Bell after he sat out the 2019 season.

Adam Schefter adds that the Steelers also plan to sign QB Ben Roethlisberger to an extension, which would create additional cap room and make it easier to trade Brown if that’s what they elect to do.

On Saturday, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reported that the Steelers are expected to consider trade offers for Brown leading up to free agency in March. Rapoport added that Pittsburgh has not closed the door on the possibility of trading Brown, as long as they can secure adequate compensation for him.

Brown is owed a $2.5 million roster bonus on the third day of the league year and Rapoport says that this will work as a deadline of sorts for the Steelers to trade him.

Rival GMs have told Rapoport that the Steelers will not give Brown away and will be asking a lot for him a potential trade. In fact, two GMs who spoke with Rapoport believe the price would be a first-round pick, while another pegged it as multiple high picks.

One decision maker predicted during his conversation with Rapoport that the Steelers would ultimately figure things out with Brown.

“Watch this get calm, and they’ll figure it out. It’s what they do,” Rapoport’s source said.

Brown, 30, is a former sixth-round pick of the Steelers back in 2010. He’s currently in the third year of his five-year, $72.71 million contract that included a $19 million signing bonus and stands to make base salaries of $12.625 million and $11.3 million over the next two years of the agreement.

Trading Brown would be really tough for the Steelers, considering that they would take a $21.12 million cap hit by moving him before June 1. After that, the dead money hit drops to $7.04 million with the remainder being carried on their 2020 salary cap.

In 2018, Brown appeared in 15 games for the Steelers and caught 104 passes for 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns.

We’ll have more regarding Brown as the news is available.