Antonio Brown now the highest paid receiver in the NFL

[True Dough]

At least he's not going to become a Patriot anytime soon!

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Antonio Brown have reached an agreement on a four-year, $68 million deal that makes him the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Brown is now tied to the Steelers through the 2021 season. He tweeted after he signed his new deal, which is front-loaded; Brown stands to make less money in the fourth and final year of the extension. The breakdown: Brown will make $18.5 million in the first three years of the contract and $12.5 million in the fourth, sources told Schefter. The deal also includes a $19 million signing bonus.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/18783479/pittsburgh-steelers-make-antonio-brown-highest-paid-wr-nfl

[hughee99]

1. There was never much of a danger of that. The Pats don't pay big money to receivers.

At 18.5 million, Brown will make more than Tom Brady next year by a good bit.

[True Dough]

2. If you were a GM

Would you pay Brady more, seeing as he's so still prolific in the twilight years of his career or would you shell out more for Antonio Brown?

I believe Brady recently took a pay cut, didn't he?

[hughee99]

3. Brady has been arguably underpaid for most of his career, and has routinely renegotiated his deal

to provide for more cap space. No, he doesn't need the money, and the money they've saved on him have allowed the Pats to spend that money elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a guy like Brown, but that's not how the Pats have operated, and they've been pretty successful doing it their way. A QB with Brady's numbers last season, even at his age, would get him considerably more money if he were a free agent, and he'd have multiple offers.

A good example of the wrong way to do it is the Ravens. Flacco had his big year and broke the bank. Then they had to let go a lot of the talent around him that made him successful. Flacco's cap hit is about than $10 million more than Brady's. Since the SB win, the Ravens have not won more than 10 games in a season and made the playoffs only once. In the 5 years before that (including the SB year), they made the playoffs every year and won 11-9-12-12-10 games each of those years.