I haven’t had much to say around BTSC lately. The Antonio Brown situation wasn’t my cup of tea. In a Reality TV world, the AB drama rendered the Steelers the worst sort of entertainment. I just wanted it to go away. With the completion of the trade that sends the part-mercurial, part-destructive and completely self-absorbed receiver across the continent, it has. Sort of. We will still endure the fallout - an endless stream of media soliloquy’s on how the Raiders fleeced us, how AB got his way, who we will bring in to replace him, how the team will fare in the post-AB era, etc. All of that is inevitable. But he is gone. At last. And for that we can at least bid adieu to a long and embarrassing chapter in our history. I’m not writing now to gloss over the damage the episode did to our franchise or the way it sets back the product we will put on the field next fall. I certainly see the down side to losing AB. But in every loss there is opportunity. That rings true here as well. The Steelers may or may not be better in 2019 than they were in 2018. I have no idea. I do know, however, that certain members of the organization have a tremendous opportunity to establish, or in some cases re-establish, their legacies here. Mike Tomlin has the opportunity to take control of the locker room again by instilling an organizational structure and discipline that seems to be lacking. Kevin Colbert has the opportunity to regain his reputation as an elite GM by parlaying his wealth of draft picks into smart acquisitions. Juju Smith-Schuster has the opportunity to prove he is a legitimate number one receiver. No one, though, has more to gain (or lose) in the post-AB era than Ben Roethlisberger. The opportunity before the once and future franchise quarterback is prolific. Here are some thoughts on what he might do with it. It wasn’t exactly the War of the Roses, but Roethlisberger clearly emerged as the victor in the power struggle between he and AB for control of the Steelers. AB may have “won” by getting his trade and new contract. But that was only after the Steelers’ brass made it clear they were hitching their wagon to Big Ben. This is no cause for celebration on Big Ben’s part. By “winning” the unquestioned leadership of the football team he helped drive out a future Hall of Fame receiver. He will need to produce another Super Bowl run or that leadership, and the price the franchise paid to grant it to him, will long be questioned. It is tempting to say the Steelers path to another title run is significantly harder now that Brown is gone. The void his departure has left is no doubt significant. Here, though, is where Roethlisberger has an opportunity to reinvent the offense in a way that may ultimately lead to it becoming more effective. Since emerging as the Steelers top receiver in 2013, Brown received 1,026 targets in 92 total games. That’s an average of over 11 a game. Roethlisberger quarterbacked 89 games in that span and averaged 37 passes per game. So roughly one of every three throws Roethlisberger made over the past six years was intended for Brown. By comparison, Julio Jones, who has averaged 10.5 targets per game since 2014, is the only other player who is even close to Brown’s target rate over that time. Jones’s targets translate to 27% of Matt Ryan’s throws, or roughly 6% fewer throws than Brown received from Roethlisberger. In short, no team relied more heavily on a single receiver than the Steelers did on Brown. And it wasn’t even close. Brown’s excellence made him the obvious focal point of the Steelers passing attack. But Brown’s target rate as a percentage of Roethlisberger’s throws decreased each of the past three seasons, from its absurd peak of 41.1% in 2015 to 30.2 in 2016, 29.0 in 2017 and a six-year low of 24.8% this past season. This decline seems to have been a point of contention for Brown, who (likely) resented how Smith-Schuster’s emergence ate into his targets. Brown’s catch percentage declined with Smith-Schuster’s emergence as well. From 2014-2016, Brown caught 371 of 528 throws from Roethlisberger for a catch percentage of 70.2. In 2017-2018, that number fell to 61.9%. Meanwhile, Smith-Schuster’s catch percentage for his first two seasons was an impressive 68.9, or just 1.3% below what Brown’s was from 2014-2016. The fact that Juju’s catch percentage has been higher than AB’s the past two seasons is telling. Catch percentage is not an arbitrary statistic. Completions equal trust between a quarterback and a receiver. It is significant that AB’s catch percentage decreased by almost ten percent in 2017-2018. This is likely the product of several factors: a concerted effort on the part of defenses to take Brown away; a disconnect between the quarterback and receiver; and an attempt by Roethlisberger to force the ball to Brown to keep the receiver happy. Although that last factor is speculation, anyone who watched the Steelers the past couple of seasons had to have noticed the number of times Roethlisberger threw to Brown despite tight or even double coverage. Maybe Big Ben trusted Brown to make a play in those situations. Or maybe he just wanted to keep 84 off his back. All of these numbers provide two interesting takeaways. One, that AB, although still an elite receiver, is no longer producing at the level he was in his peak 2014-2016 years. And two, that Roethlisberger has already begun to transition away from his reliance on Brown as the unquestioned focal point of the passing game. Roethlisberger’s QBR in 2018 was 73.0, the highest of his career. His 67.0 completion percentage was just .1 shy of a career high as well. Having two great receivers in Brown and Juju certainly helped. So, it seems, did spreading the ball around. Here we find both the challenge and the opportunity awaiting Roethlisberger. Departing with Brown are roughly ⅓ of Big Ben’s targeted throws from the past six years. A veteran receiver (John Brown? Randall Cobb?) will likely be brought in via free agency to fill some of that void. A reasonably high draft pick should be expected at the position as well. Maybe the Steelers will even shock the world by packaging some of their new draft capital and going up in the first round to get the tantalizing D.K. Metcalf (not likely, but boy would that make the splash so many Steeler fans desperately want from Kevin Colbert). Whatever they do, there are plenty of options on the current roster to replace some of Brown’s production while making the offense less predictable. If Roethlisberger feels free to throw the ball where he wants and isn’t hamstrung by having to placate an egocentric diva, he can take what defenses give him or find the best matchups. When he famously said, “I should have just thrown the ball to Juju all four downs” after forcing a throw to Brown that resulted in a game-ending goal-line interception in Denver, what he may have been saying was, “I shouldn’t have worried about AB complaining he didn’t get the ball at the end. I should have gone where I thought we had the best chance to succeed.” Even without Brown, the Steelers have players who create mismatches and matchup problems. Assuming Juju draws some of the safety help Brown did, Vance McDonald should remain effective up the seam and in the middle of the field. Eli Rogers and Ryan Switzer are excellent in the slot and James Washington, though still raw, should build on his solid finish to 2018 by making a significant leap in his sophomore season. As mentioned above, the Steelers will surely add speed on the outside either through free agency or the draft to push Washington. James Conner and Jaylen Samuels each proved to be reliable receivers out of the backfield as well. Bottom line - the talent level is not better without AB but it isn’t poor, either.<doc-sep>The Raiders were believed to be a contender for receiver Antonio Brown from the moment the Steelers made it clear they were moving on from him. But the Raiders wisely were coy, resisting making the first move — and as a result pilfering him from Pittsburgh. G.M. Mike Mayock explained how things went down during a Friday visit to The Dan Patrick Show. “I kept saying, ‘We’re not interested,'” Mayock said. “Then the Buffalo thing fell through. One of their guys reached out to Jon [Gruden]. . . . [Steelers GM] Kevin [Colbert] said to me, ‘Would you trade your two? I said, ‘No, but we might trade our three. '” Last year, the Raiders traded their three from the trade down from No. 10 to No. 15 to the Steelers for receiver Martavis Bryant, so it was definitely going to take more than that to get Brown. Ultimately, the Raiders got Brown for a three and a five, a deal that looks even better after the Browns gave up a one, a three, and a player taken with a first-round pick in 2017 to get Odell Beckham. The outcome reconfirms the value of a poker face when negotiating trades. The Steelers failed to create the impression that they’d keep Brown, although they tried (too late) to change the perception/reality that they would take whatever they can get. The Raiders opted to say “not interested,” “not interested,” “not interested,” “not interested,” and “did I stutter?” until the price dropped to a point where the Raiders got interested.<doc-sep>Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that earlier this week the Pittsburgh Steelers traded their No. 1 wideout, Antonio Brown, to the Oakland Raiders for third and fifth-round picks in the 2019 NFL Draft. That move left the Steelers with a bit of a hole in their wide receiver corps, and they responded early Thursday morning by signing former Colts and Jaguars wide receiver Donte Moncrief to a two-year deal, according to ESPN.com's Adam Schefter. Moncrief, a third-round pick of the Colts in 2014, spent his first four years in Indianapolis before signing with Jacksonville last year. His best season came back in 2015, when he was one of Andrew Luck's top targets and caught 64 passes for 733 yards and five touchdowns. He had a solid but unspectacular season with the Jags last year, hauling in 48 passes for 668 yards and three scores. He has good size at 6-2, 220 pounds, and he's shown an ability to make plays on downfield throws, but he has never been consistent enough to become the kind of force his talent sometimes suggests he can be. Moncrief will not be the No. 1 receiver in Pittsburgh (that's JuJu Smith-Schuster's role now) but he figures to battle it out with second-year man James Washington, slot receivers Eli Rogers and Ryan Switzer, and whomever the Steelers add either in the remainder or free agency or the draft for the role as Ben Roethlisberger's secondary perimeter target. The Steelers' offense is going to take on a much different look and feel without Brown, Le'Veon Bell, and longtime right tackle Marcus Gilbert, and Moncrief's signing is just one piece of what has to be a much larger puzzle.<doc-sep>
Ben Margot/Associated Press The Pittsburgh Steelers reportedly re-ignited trade discussions with the Oakland Raiders for star wide receiver Antonio Brown after a potential deal with the Buffalo Bills fell apart. "I kept saying, 'We’re not interested,'" Raiders general manager Mike Mayock said on the Dan Patrick Show regarding initial talks with the Steelers. "Then the Buffalo thing fell through. One of their guys reached out to Jon [Gruden]...[Steelers GM] Kevin [Colbert] said to me, 'Would you trade your two? I said, 'No, but we might trade our three.'" Mayock also noted in the interview that he and Gruden were "unified" in not trading away one of the team's three first-round picks in this year's draft. Once those first-rounders were off the board, getting a player of Brown's caliber became impossible to pass on. "As intriguing as AB was, we were trying to build a certain way," Mayock said. "But when he became available at a different level, it was kinda like, we can change how we practice. We can change what we look like on Sunday. We can change how teams have to defend us. For a three and a five, at that point, we were ready to say, 'It looks like free agency's got to change for us.'" The Raiders ultimately agreed to send the Steelers a third- and fifth-round pick for Brown, though Mayock noted "the hard part started after that" since the trade was "contingent upon getting AB a new deal." Mayock said the deal nearly didn't go down given those negotiations, though the Raiders and Browns eventually agreed to a reworked contract that gave him a nice raise, including $30.1 million in guaranteed money. Video Play Button Videos you might like Brown was the premier addition of the offseason for Oakland, but the Raiders have been busy, also signing tackle Trent Brown, defensive back Lamarcus Joyner and wide receiver Tyrell Williams. With those four moves, the Raiders added four starters, bolstering a roster with major needs at multiple positions. The two Browns and Williams should make life much easier for Carr. His new wideouts combined for 145 receptions, 1,950 yards and 20 touchdowns last season, with Brown accounting for the majority of that workload. Williams should benefit from the added attention Brown receives, however, while Carr will benefit from playing with an elite route-runner and playmaker of Brown's status. And while the Raiders are paying Brown a hefty fee, they didn't have to pay the Steelers one to acquire him. In that regard, the Raiders kept their key draft assets as they continue to rebuild.