Earlier this week it became apparent that Antonio Brown was trying to push Mayock as far as he could when he released images of disciplinary letters served to him by the aforementioned Mike Mayock, General Manager of the Oakland Raiders.
One of our senior editors picked up the news in full regarding Antonio Brown’s suspension, you can find it below.
I wanted to write this article nonetheless, not to cover the news as such but to touch on something mentioned by Kieran earlier today. Antonio Brown can be cut without so much as a penny being guaranteed to the former Steeler.
A stipulation within Brown’s contract states that the Raiders can effectively void his entire deal if two conditions are met a) if he is suspended by the team and b) if he is not in the opening day 53 (injury permitting).
When the news of Brown’s suspension hit the world today it did something far more destructive, silently the Raiders have begun setting the wheels in motion in terminating the contract of Antonio Brown for “conduct detrimental to the team”.
if, as I suspect AB were to appeal any decision on the grounds that his behaviour has not been detrimental to the team then I would expect Oakland to call upon the helmet issue, his feet issue and now his violent conduct issue after he had to be restrained from attacking Mike Mayock earlier today.
Antonio Brown has been a distraction
Mike Florio, a friend of ours over at Pro Football Talk has stated Brown is owed just shy of thirty million dollars for 2019 and 2020 ($29.125) in guaranteed money ( in the form of 2019 salary ($14.625 million) and 2020 salary ($14.5 million). In fact, Brown has only received a $1 million signing bonus from the Raiders at all since being traded at the beginning of the year.
Any suspension, however, will void those guaranties which gives Oakland the option to cut Brown without any dead cap hit beyond the $1M already paid out.
They could do it right now. – It’s possible that Oakland could call quits on this ‘experiment’ and it will only cost them $1M and the draft picks surrendered in acquiring AB.
It seems as if we are awaiting the inevitable regarding the suspension, every one by the Raiders have acknowledged the circumstances making it all but official.
If they suspend him without pay for Week One, they also could do it at any time during the 2019 season and avoid owing him anything further under the Termination Pay provision of the labor deal, since a player with four or more years of service can collect the remainder of his salary upon being released only if he’s on the Week One active roster.
A few weeks ago Antonio Brown threatened to retire if he didn’t get to wear his out of date, dangerous helmet. Nobody believed he would really walk away from $30 Million dollars. Today things are different, Antonio Brown is likely to leave Oakland without a single appearance and $29 Million down.
Whatever happens from here, Drew Rosenhaus (Antonio Brown’s agent) and his client need to understand the severity of the situation, they then need to be on the phone to both Mayock and Gruden effectively begging for another chance.
In January, I said that Antonio Brown will not be in the NFL come week 1 of the 2019 season, I strongly believe the chances you never see Brown turn out as a Raider are an almost certainty at this point.
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