It was announced on Wednesday that the Raiders plan to release offensive guard Gabe Jackson and the immediate thought was that Trent Brown might end up not being released after all.
But according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the Raiders have had trade talks about possibly trading Brown and it has “a shot” at happening.
If they can trade Brown, the Raiders would clear another $14 million in salary on top of the $9.6 million they will get from releasing Jackson.
More than likely, the tweet from Rapoport was a message to the league from the Raiders that they are ready get a trade done. Or in other words, Jon Gruden is ready for every team’s final offer. So we should soon know what kind of trade value Brown will have (if he has any at all). Remember, a few weeks ago, there was reported trade interest in Marcus Mariota and there hasn’t been any movement on him since.
Mariota reportedly hasn’t been willing to adjust his contract and as a result, the Raiders haven’t been able to trade him. Brown has a contract that teams might not shy away from, but he has options to turn off teams from trading for him, as well (no smart team is committing $14 million to Brown if he doesn’t want to be there).
If the Raiders for some reason do not trade Brown, they may have to release him prior to the opening of free agency. There wasn’t a great relationship between Brown and the team prior to today’s report and nothing about the news that the Raiders are shopping him will make matters any better.
twitter: @raidersbeat