Gerry Dulac reports that the Steelers are still talking with “several” teams who are interested in trading for WR Antonio Brown and there does not appear to be a hard deadline for a deal to be completed.
Ian Rapoport reported recently that Pittsburgh is still looking for a first-round pick in a trade for Brown and they were hoping to have a deal in place by Friday.
However, it sounds like a trade involving Brown could take longer than the Steelers would like and the compensation may not end up being what they had initially hoped.
The Redskins, Titans, Saints, Cardinals, Broncos and Jets are reportedly no longer in the picture, so it remains to be seen who these other teams are.
Pittsburgh would incur a $21 million cap hit by trading Brown, which is typically too prohibitive for a team to take on. However, reports have said Pittsburgh believes they can easily offset the cap hit.
Brown is owed a $2.5 million roster bonus on the third day of the league year, which could work as a deadline of sorts for the Steelers to trade him.
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 and the Steelers as the news is available.
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