03-10-2019, 08:31 PM
(03-10-2019, 05:19 PM)Whatever Wrote: Even if the Steelers refused to trade him, he could have simply filed his retirement papers to avoid the fines and unretired once the Steelers didn't have cap room for him. He did make some comments about not needing to play anymore. That is a big difference between between him and Bell. The Steelers have fallen over themselves to back the Brinks truck up to Brown's door numerous times. He doesn't need to continue playing to have long term financial security, and now the Steelers are finding out that the financial security they gave him is massive leverage.
The Steelers had to trade him. They played hardball with Bell last year and lost and can't afford the drama or setting aside massive cap dollars for a guy who isn't playing again. Everyone else knew this and the Raiders stuck it to them. The big concern is that if only one player strongarmed their way out of Pittsburgh, that's a player problem. When multiple players do it, that's a team problem.
I believe that if he retired he would have to pay back a portion of his signing bonus money.
And there's no way the Steelers could have played hardball with him, especially after the Bell situation. There are a lot of pissed off Steelers fans that think that they should have. If they did, it would have been the Bell situation magnified by 100. It would have lingered into OTAs and probably camp and preseason and Brown would've used social media and the retired players in the media who are largely on his side from a player/union perspective (they've been the ones pushing the blame Ben angle hard).
In the Bell situation they have been crucified for not cutting bait and dragging it along for nothing while wasting $14M in cap space, but now they're getting shit for avoiding that with Brown
They were in a no win situation.
