Steelers: No tag for Bell; could trade Brown

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Le’Veon Bell is free to go. Antonio Brown, maybe not so much.

The Pittsburgh Steelers have no plans to place a transition tag on Bell, allowing the star running back to reach the open market when free agency begins next month. And while the team will explore moving Brown, general manager Kevin Colbert stressed Wednesday the Steelers will not cut the talented but turbulent star wide receiver just to appease him.

“By no means are we going to make a trade or any type of move that will not be beneficial to the Pittsburgh Steeler organization,” Colbert said. “We will not be discounting [Brown] on the trade market and we certainly will not be releasing (him).”

Brown began openly campaigning for a new team shortly after Pittsburgh finished 9-6-1, upset after being made inactive for the regular season finale against Cincinnati for failing to provide coach Mike Tomlin with an update on his status after Tomlin sent Brown home from practice a couple of days before the game to nurse an injury.

The Steelers won but missed the playoffs. Brown has spent most of the last two months thumbing his nose at the organization via social media in an effort to assure he wouldn’t be welcomed back, including calling out quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for having an “owner mentality” and questioning Tomlin’s integrity.

Yet Colbert said he doesn’t believe Brown’s erratic behavior will hurt his trade value and didn’t even rule out a chance that Brown returns to Pittsburgh for a 10th season in 2019. Brown met with Colbert, team president Art Rooney II and vice president Omar Khan in Florida on Tuesday to clear the air. Though both sides agreed “looking into a trade would probably be the best course of action,” Brown and Rooney posed for a picture afterward , a gesture Colbert called more indicative of Brown’s character than the drama that’s surrounded him at times during his prolific rise from sixth-round pick to the most productive wide receiver of his generation.

The team has not yet entered into active trade talks for Brown, the only player in NFL history with six straight seasons of at least 100 receptions. That figures to pick up with free agency set to begin on March 13 and Brown due a $2.5 million roster bonus on March 17.

“He believes there will be demand and hopefully for our situation there’s a demand that can satisfy anybody,” Colbert said.

What “satisfy” means is up to the Steelers and not Brown, who along with agent Drew Rosenhaus will be kept in the loop but will not be given freedom to go seek their own deal. Colbert declined to get into specifics on what the team is looking for, pointing out it could be a draft pick or an established player or perhaps some combination. The Dallas Cowboys gave the Oakland Raiders a 2019 first-round pick for Amari Cooper last fall. Pittsburgh even snagged a third-rounder from the Raiders last spring for Martavis Bryant.