Wide receiver Antonio Brown sparred with Oakland Raiders all summer. Now he’s heading to the New England Patriots, according to news reports. AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
The New England Patriots agreed to terms with mercurial wide receiver Antonio Brown on Saturday, hours after he was released by the Oakland Raiders, according to media reports.
Both ESPN and NFL.com are reporting that the Patriots are giving Brown a $15 million, one-year deal with a $9 in signing bonus.
Brown went on social media late Saturday afternoon to announce he was heading to New England.
LFG #GodsPlan pic.twitter.com/MflFD1MqoT
— AB (@AB84) September 7, 2019
Earlier Saturday, the Raiders released Brown, ending his turbulent stay with the team soon after he took to social media to demand his release.
Brown’s tumultuous stay with the Raiders ended without him playing a single regular season game for them, and the next question becomes whether another team will sign him. The Raiders announced the move Saturday morning.
The Raiders’ decision to cut their ties with Brown comes one day after the team opted not to suspend or release him for a midweek practice-field incident with general manager Mike Mayock, with coach Jon Gruden saying Friday that he plans on Brown playing Monday night against the Denver Broncos in the Raiders’ regular season opener. But Brown was fined for that incident with Mayock and was facing the possibility of the guarantee of a portion of the money in his contract being revoked by the Raiders under the language of the deal.
Brown ended an Instagram post by telling the Raiders to “Release me,” followed by “#NOMore.”
In the Instagram post, Brown also wrote: “You are gonna piss a lot of people off when you start doing what’s best for you.”
He wrote: “And that’s fine! I have worked my whole life to prove that the system is blind to see talent like (mine). Now that everyone sees is, they want me to conform to that same system that has failed me all those years. ‘I’m not mad at anyone. I’m just asking for the freedom to prove them all wrong.’ ”
Brown’s demand to be released was related to the Raiders informing him that they were revoking the guarantees of a large portion of his contract based on his conduct and the language in the deal, according to a person familiar with the situation. The team also fined him more than $215,000 for the midweek incident with Mayock, according to that person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Through the NFL Players Association, Brown could have challenged both the fine and the Raiders’ attempt to revoke the guarantees in his contract.
He signed a three-year, $50.1 million contract with the Raiders in conjunction with the offseason trade in which the team acquired him from the Pittsburgh Steelers. The deal contained $30.1 million in guaranteed money, $1 million of which was tied to a bonus and the remaining $29.1 million of which is tied to his salaries of $14.625 million this season and $14.5 million for the 2020 season.
The contract language gave the Raiders, they believe, the ability under NFL rules to void the guarantee of the remaining $29.1 million, making those salaries non-guaranteed, based on misconduct by Brown. The Raiders informed Brown that they were exercising that right to revoke the guarantees of the $29.1 million, according to the person familiar with the case.
The fine for Wednesday’s incident with Mayock was not the team’s first disciplinary action against Brown. The team previously notified Brown that he was being fined nearly $54,000 for missing a walk-through and a day of training camp last month.
Under normal conditions, Brown’s $14.625 million salary for the 2019 season would have become guaranteed, in effect, if he’d been on the Raiders’ roster Monday, given the league’s system for termination pay. Brown could have chosen to collect his full salary if he were to be released, under that system. However, the Raiders informed Brown it’s their contention that Brown would not be entitled to such termination pay of his full 2019 salary.
But that would have become a point of contention if the NFLPA had filed a grievance on Brown’s behalf. A person close to the case said previously that the NFLPA believes that Brown’s 2019 salary would become re-guaranteed, in effect, by being on the Raiders’ roster Monday. In that scenario, all that would remain in question would the guarantee of Brown’s 2020 salary.
The Raiders fined Brown $215,073.53 for Wednesday’s incident with Mayock. That’s one-quarter of the $860,294.12 – one game check for Brown amounting to one-seventeenth of his 2019 salary – that the Raiders could have fined Brown for conduct detrimental to the team, under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the NFLPA.
The Raiders chose not to suspend Brown for conduct detrimental to the team. Under the CBA, a club can suspend a player as many as four games without pay for such conduct. But when Brown returned to practice Friday after being told to stay home Thursday, Gruden told reporters that the plan was for Brown to play Monday night.
Brown apologized to fellow Raiders players in a team meeting Friday and later said during a brief meeting with reporters: “I’m excited to be out here today. I apologized to my teammates (and) the organization. Enough talk, man. I’m excited to be out here with my teammates. I’m grateful for all the fans. I’m excited to be a part of the Raiders and see you guys soon.”
Later Friday, Brown released a YouTube video containing, it appeared, a phone conversation that he’d had with Gruden. In the conversation, Gruden asked Brown if he wanted to be a Raider and Brown replied that the issue was whether the team wanted him to be a Raider. Gruden told Brown to cease his off-field antics and just play football.
The incident with Mayock came after Brown posted to social media a copy of the letter from the GM informing him of the $54,000 in fines. According to reports, Brown used disparaging language during Wednesday’s incident and threatened to punch Mayock but the confrontation did not become physical. Brown reportedly also punted a football and told Mayock to fine him for that.
The Raiders told Brown to stay home Thursday and he complied, missing that day’s practice. But his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said he was working to repair Brown’s relationship with the team. Rosenhaus’s voice could be heard on the audio of the phone conversation with Gruden in the YouTube video.
Team officials mulled the possibility of suspending or releasing Brown after Wednesday’s incident, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations, but decided against it. Brown was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection while with the Steelers and the Raiders are eager to try to win in the second season of Gruden’s return to coaching after he left ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” broadcast booth. The team hired Mayock, a former draft analyst for NFL Network, as GM, but Gruden is believed to have the final say over major player-related decisions.
Brown missed practice time during training camp and the preseason after suffering injuries to his feet, reportedly while undergoing cryotherapy treatments, and while fighting the NFL with two failed grievances in which he sought to allow to be wear a helmet not up to the league’s safety standards.
Copy the Story LinkComments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
