Shortly before Antonio Brown was traded to the Oakland Raiders, there was a report that the Pittsburgh Steelers had reached a deal to send the disgruntled wide receiver to the Buffalo Bills, but, at the last minute, the deal fell apart because Brown did not want to go to Buffalo.
However, Bills general manager Brandon Beane says that that report was not true, stating that while Buffalo did have talks with Pittsburgh, the Bills were never all that close to trading for Brown.
“We had productive talks with Kevin Colbert, with Pittsburgh, but one of the things I made clear with Kevin early on is we would have to be comfortable with where the compensation is going to have to be with AB’s representatives, and that was never something that we were even close on,” Beane told Pro Football Talk live, per Michael David Smith. “We just didn’t get far enough down the road. There’s compensation with the Steelers and then there’s compensation with the player. We were just never able to work out all sides to make that happen. It had totally died down before that tweet came out that was erroneous. It wasn’t like it was heating up at that point. Talks had stalled well before.”
While Brown may not have wanted to take his talents to Buffalo, there were also rumors that money was an issue for the Bills, which may be what Beane is referring to when he says “compensation for the player.”
As far as compensation for the Steelers? It's hard to imagine that Buffalo was not offering at least as much as the Raiders, who were able to nab Brown for a third-round draft pick and a fifth-rounder.
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