What I’m Listening to: United states of america Currently Sports’ Mike Jones confirms that Antonio Brown has formally requested the Pittsburgh Steelers to trade him. Now what?
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The Detroit Lions are not probable to trade for Steelers’ receiver, Antonio Brown. They never like interruptions. And Brown is unquestionably a distraction.
He’s also a big difference-maker. However. Even at 30 — he’ll be 31 by upcoming season’s get started.
And thinking about the Lions are in the midst of a half-century rebuild … properly, why not make a perform for the talented receiver?
He’d expense about $15 million upcoming calendar year. Approximately $11 million the calendar year just after that. And about $12 million the calendar year just after that.
Not horrible. At the very least not when thinking about what Brown could do for Matthew Stafford and the offense.
Even if it expense the Lions their initial-round choose this spring — slotted at No. 8 — is just not that well worth a shot? Nevertheless at this stage, with all the injury Brown has accomplished in Pittsburgh, it’s a good guess no workforce will element with a initial rounder. Not a prime-10 choose, anyway.
Which signifies Brown may be experienced for a second-round choose and a player. Say, Marvin Jones, who would enable offset the cap hit the Lions would just take by buying Brown.
Yeah, I get it, trading the No. 8 choose is likely not well worth it, even as there is also no warranty that choose would convert into a perennial pro bowler, as Brown is and has been.
But moving a second-rounder?
Indeed, there is still danger. And that danger is challenging by not just Brown’s age — his manufacturing is probable to go down as he settles into his 30s — but his persona.
This earlier weekend Brown held a Q&A on Twitter and took photographs at Pittsburgh’s coach Mike Tomlin and the group alone. He’s also lambasted Steelers’ quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger.
But then who has not?
However, his detrimental affect on the locker room is plain … at the very least this earlier calendar year.
On the other hand?
He’s aided lead a prime-five offense in four of the earlier five seasons. He can beat double-teams. And when the sport slows to slog, he is a single of the couple receivers in the league who can still get open.
You viewed the Tremendous Bowl, correct? When Julian Edelman found seams and creases when no other receiver on the Patriots’ roster could? (Rob Gronkowski is a restricted close, sorry.) Wouldn’t the Lions profit from this sort of a existence?
Moreover, if the Lions truly are the Patriots of the Midwest — other than, of study course, for the successful — then they should believe sufficient in their tradition to take in a challenging temperament. Like the Patriots typically do.
Common manager Bob Quinn has reported a lot more than after that he wants small-servicing players populating his locker room. Just last week he implied he handed on jogging back again Kareem Hunt because he wanted “good people in this group.”
Hunt was lower from Kansas Town last tumble when online video surfaced showing Hunt experienced kicked and shoved a feminine acquaintance in a lodge in Cleveland before in the calendar year. I comprehend why Quinn stayed obvious of Hunt.
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Brown’s concerns, meanwhile, are based on how he matches into a workforce and the tropes that from time to time crop up around gifted receivers. His general public just take down of his coach and workforce has not aided his bring about. Sometimes, however, a new locker room can be handy.
Investing for Brown, naturally, isn’t excellent. Quinn would have to locate a way to internally justify the type of temperament he’s reported anxieties him. He’d have to rely on a second-calendar year coach to produce belief and locate a relationship, a coach, by the way, who is himself making an attempt to understand how to navigate an NFL locker room.
Quinn would also have to promote Brown to Stafford. And it’s possible even promote trading Marvin Jones.
This is a whole lot to method. And a whole lot to danger.
Then all over again, Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia are aiming for a playoff run. That signifies getting luck someplace, irrespective of whether via the draft or free of charge agency.
So why not just take a chance with a trade? And carry in a single of the game’s most dynamic forces?
What have they acquired to lose?
Get in touch with Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Stick to him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.
