According to Bills’ General Manager Brandon Beane, Antonio Brown was never close to being traded to Buffalo, despite reports to the contrary.
“We had productive talks with Kevin Colbert, with Pittsburgh, but one of the things I made clear with Kevin early on is we would have to be comfortable with where the compensation is going to have to be with AB’s representatives, and that was never something that we were even close on,” Beane told PFT Live over the weekend.”
“We just didn’t get far enough down the road,” Beane continued. “There’s compensation with the Steelers and then there’s compensation with the player. We were just never able to work out all sides to make that happen. It had totally died down before that tweet came out that was erroneous. It wasn’t like it was heating up at that point. Talks had stalled well before.”
Looking back, there’s no question that the Brown-Buffalo report came from the Steelers building. Pittsburgh had been floating fake news all week about Brown’s robust trade market and the Buffalo “trade” was just one last failed attempt by Pittsburgh to get the Raiders to bump their offer to a second-round pick.
The Raiders, of course, didn’t budge and it’s fair to wonder why they never spiced up their offer. One theory is that Mike Mayock, who has strong links to about every personnel department in the league, may have had a good understanding of what most teams were willing to give up for Brown.
For all the criticism the Raiders have taken for hiring Mayock, it’s worth noting that very few NFL personalities have built stronger relationships among the various personnel departments around the league than Mayock. It isn’t a stretch to think one or two of those relationships in other buildings helped give the Raiders the confidence they needed to hold firm on their offer for Brown.
As for the Steelers… there is no question they have been the epicenter of fake news around Brown (at least in terms of his trade market) for the last month.
And doesn’t it make you wonder what else about Brown they’ve been lying about?
twitter: @raidersbeat
Mayock is going to be 1000x better than that bumbling idiot, Reggie McKenzie. Reggie road that solid 2014 draft for way too long. He never filled it in with enough talent to make it worthwhile, so the rebuild had to start all over again. Dude sucked! Mayock is going to crush the draft. Period.
Reggie got the Raiders cap space right and he hit on enough players to leave us much better than we were when he took over. Don’t be a fair weather fan, once a Raider always a Raider and Reggie served a purpose. With that said, Looking forward to Mayock Season.
Amen. You know how pissed I get whenver I see Jihad Ward’s name or Derrick Henry as Beastmode 2.0. And don’t get me started on Shilique Callhoun
Idk about bumbling idiot but he turned a dumpster fire around and made them relevant again no he didn’t capitalize by keeping fresh talent coming in but every raider fan owes Reggie a thanks I know would if I had the opportunity but as far as mayock I agree he’s the man no one scouts harder or knows more about talent than this guy