The Raiders were hoping re-sign Nelson Agholor, but a two-year deal worth up to $26 million ultimately lured Jon Gruden’s leading receiver to New England.
It was a lot of money for a player who made just over $1 million last year and according to some around the league, the Raiders may have stumbled into an upgrade at wide receiver in John Brown.
“I had general managers who really liked Nelson, but who also said they would have made a trade to trade Nelson Agholor for John Brown,” Sports Illustrated’s Hondo Carpenter said Monday on the Pritch and Clay radio show. “Because Jon Brown was more consistent, he has a longer track record, so they thought it was an upgrade.”
Time will tell whether the Raiders found an upgrade in Brown, but his one-year, $3.75 million deal is a lot gentler on the salary cap than what Agholor’s deal would have been. At the very least, Brown’s value now is a lot more than what Agholor’s was a year ago and if all goes as planned, a year in Gruden’s offense will do the same for Brown as it did for his predecessor.
For what it’s worth, it will also be interesting to see how the Patriot offense will maximize Agholor.
Can he find the same kind of success with Cam Newton as he had with Derek Carr?
twitter: @raidersbeat
Time will tell. We’ll see how he performs this season and then we all can decide who was more valuable and whether Brown was an upgrade…
Hope Brown can match Agholor’s catches and touch downs
It all sounds great but if those GM’s thought so much of Brown then why didn’t they trade for him? Further, to Gruden’s and Mayock’s credit, which I don’t say very often, apparently they “saw something” in Agholor that these same other GM’s did not and thus Agholor’s productive season in Las Vegas. These guys are always right in hindsight but apparently not so much so when “taking a gamble” on questionable players themselves. NOW, what remains to be seen is whether or not Brown lives up to these “other GM’S” presumptuous assessments.
Well Brown said he took a pay cut to come play for the RAIDERS he had other offers from other teams
I honestly believe that jinxed it . Now brown will probably have a so-so season at best. But on the other hand since most of them talked smack on Kenyan drake he’s probably going to have a career year…its actually probably going to be a good thing that brown is adequate at best because that means Bryan Edwards and Henry ruggs will have breakout seasons…F NFL exec’s…..go RAIDERS