Cards send Levi Brown to Steelers!!!

[Davis_Mike]

Cards send Levi Brown to Steelers

There’s suddenly a left tackle arms race in the AFC North.

After the Ravens made a move last night to get Eugene Monroe off the Jaguars, the Steelers are trying to keep pace.

A league source tells PFT that the Cardinals have agreed to a deal that will send tackle Levi Brown to Pittsburgh. Pending a physical, the trade will happen.

Jason La Canfora of CBS previously has reported that the two teams were “hammering out” a trade.

The Steelers have clearly been dissatisfied with their tackle play all year, rotating Kelvin Beachum in for both Mike Adams and Marcus Gilbert.

Cardinals coach Bruce Arians referred to Brown as an “elite” left tackle this offseason, but he must not feel that same way after a month of regular-season games.

Cardinals don’t get much for Levi Brown

So what did the Cardinals get in return for tackle Levi Brown? Per a source with knowledge of the deal, not too much.

The source says the Cardinals are getting “late-round stuff” in exchange for Brown, the former top-five draft pick who played college football at Penn State and who is from Eastern Virginia, an area for which coach Mike Tomlin seems to have a specific affinity when it comes to finding players. That implies either one, or more than one, low-round draft pick.

Brown has played for the Cardinals since entering the league in 2007. With the Steelers, he’ll presumably be placed immediately at the left tackle position, where 2012 second-round pick Mike Adams repeatedly was beaten and abused by Vikings defensive end Jared Allen on Sunday.

It’s an odd move for the Cardinals, who had been creating a win-now vibe based on some of their late-preseason moves — and who are tied for second place in the NFC West after four games. Losing Brown won’t help them win now, and what they’re getting in return may not do much to help them win later.

The football gods have answered our prayers. Getting anything for him is a coup. It's obvious that PTF has no idea what they are talking about in their articles when it comes to Lei Brown. Bradley Sowell is set to start at LT.

 

[Davis_Mike]

The cap savings over the next 3 seasons will be:

-2013 $4,750,000 (prorated)
-2014 $6,000,000
-2015 $5,000,000
-2016 $5,000,000

The cap hit (dead money) is $4,200,000. I am not sure if that can spread out over this season & next, or over a few years.

 

[johnson]

They didn't want Mendenhall back too?

I think this is karma...we've been taking the Steelers garbage (Whisenhunt, Russ Grimm, Mendenhall, etc. etc.) for years and it's about time they took some of ours.

 

[Orange602]

"Losing Brown won't help them win now"

Whoever wrote this is absolutely clueless.

 

[Davis_Mike]

"Losing Brown won't help them win now"

Whoever wrote this is absolutely clueless.

Exactly. I quoted that sentence in my reply to that article. I basically told him he hadn't done his research.

 

[Arizona_Sting]

Brown is awful. Good riddance.

 

[Arizona_Sting]

 

[Orange602]

I don't understand how Brown is an upgrade for the Steelers. He is one of the worst (if not the worst) LTs in the league.

 

[pantherfanforever11]

The cap savings over the next 3 seasons will be:

-2013 $4,750,000 (prorated)
-2014 $6,000,000
-2015 $5,000,000
-2016 $5,000,000

The cap hit (dead money) is $4,200,000. I am not sure if that can spread out over this season & next, or over a few years.

correct me if im wrong but in the event of a trade there is no dead money. unless you are paying a portion of his salary?

 

[Davis_Mike]

correct me if im wrong but in the event of a trade there is no dead money. unless you are paying a portion of his salary?

Dead money is from the signing bonus. That money still counts towards the cap of the team that signed him to the contract. In this case Levi's contract had a $7 mil signing bonus paid to him when he signed the contract. Signing bonuses get prorated over the lifetime of the contract, which in this case is $1.4 mil x 5 years(length of contract). With 3 more years of signing bonus left towards the cap, he still had $4.2 total left to count towards the cap. When players are released or traded, the players current/future salary comes of the books for the team trading him but they still take a cap hit for the money already paid to him in bonuses that were scheduled to count to the cap in the future. The total number comes due to the following season instead of spread out over numerous seasons. That is why it is called dead money.

Here is the a link to the numbers: Over the Cap

Pit is taking a $3.6 mil flyer on Levi. If he plays like he has, Pit can just cut him after the season & owe him nothing. If he plays serviceable & Pit wants to keep, that is a lot of money to take on for a cap strapped team.

 

[Arizona_Sting]

I think the thing that sucks most is that we could've drafted Adrian Peterson instead of Brown.

 

[Davis_Mike]

I think the thing that sucks most is that we could've drafted Adrian Peterson instead of Brown.

So could have Oakland, Tampa, & Washington. At least we got some service out of him & weren't stuck with $25+ mil in dead money unlike Oak & Tampa. And were at least got something in return for letting him go.

But yeah, Graves Whiz, & Grim suck.

 

[pantherfanforever11]

Dead money is from the signing bonus. That money still counts towards the cap of the team that signed him to the contract. In this case Levi's contract had a $7 mil signing bonus paid to him when he signed the contract. Signing bonuses get prorated over the lifetime of the contract, which in this case is $1.4 mil x 5 years(length of contract). With 3 more years of signing bonus left towards the cap, he still had $4.2 total left to count towards the cap. When players are released or traded, the players current/future salary comes of the books for the team trading him but they still take a cap hit for the money already paid to him in bonuses that were scheduled to count to the cap in the future. The total number comes due to the following season instead of spread out over numerous seasons. That is why it is called dead money.

Here is the a link to the numbers: Over the Cap

Pit is taking a $3.6 mil flyer on Levi. If he plays like he has, Pit can just cut him after the season & owe him nothing. If he plays serviceable & Pit wants to keep, that is a lot of money to take on for a cap strapped team.

great breakdown thanks.

 

[CakesW]

So could have Oakland, Tampa, & Washington. At least we got some service out of him & weren't stuck with $25+ mil in dead money unlike Oak & Tampa. And were at least got something in return for letting him go.

But yeah, Graves Whiz, & Grim suck.

You are right... but we've got to be fair... It's not like Steve Keim was a toiling in the front office of some other team at that time... he might have had a hand in the drafting of Levi, but we will never know...

Keim was in charge of college scouting the draft that Levi was the #5...

 

[Jonas_steven]

Praise Jesus! Our prayers have been answered! Klesla might as well have been our LT. At least he is not afraid to block something!

 

[HaroldSeattle]

Interesting to hear everybody comments on this move. I don't get see the Cards play that often and just get to watch the big plays for most part. Driving home I was listening to the sports jocks on the radio comment on why the Seahawks were not a player on this move ( given the injuries on the OL). Now I know why.

 

[DweeberAZ]

Can't find the sound bite, but I heard a clip from Keim about Levi and how the new starter couldnt be any worse and most likely better than Levi was.

Ben's comments were interesting too....

"I don't have much of a reaction," Roethlisberger said. "I obviously know the name. It's Pittsburgh West out there [in Arizona], so it makes sense. We'll just have to see what the plan is for him and the other guys that are here."

"We'll see," he said. "It depends on how much works he wants to put in. How much does he want to be here? Is he going to be here all weekend? Does he want to put the time and effort into be that guy? Who knows if he is that guy? Is it [Kelvin ] Beachum or Mike? We don't know. I guess it will be a matter if he can learn the offense when he gets here."

 

[Jonas_steven]

Interesting to hear everybody comments on this move. I don't get see the Cards play that often and just get to watch the big plays for most part. Driving home I was listening to the sports jocks on the radio comment on why the Seahawks were not a player on this move ( given the injuries on the OL). Now I know why.

Consider yourselves fortunate! You don't want no part of that mess!

 

[Jonas_steven]

Btw...keim was a huge advocate for A.P. But was over-ridden by other members of the regime. I guess it is all hindsight now.

 

[Davis_Mike]

To facilitate the trade, the Cardinals restructured Brown’s contract, agreeing to pay him a $3.085 million signing bonus. The Steelers are tight against the salary cap, and there was no way they could pick up the remainder of Brown’s $4.75 million salary.

So the Cardinals made it happen with the signing bonus, and Brown’s salary with the Steelers this year is $840,000.

Paying the signing bonus wasn’t a big deal to the Cardinals, because even if they released Brown, they were on the hook for the entire salary.

By paying the signing bonus, the Cardinals lowered Brown’s 2013 cap number by about $2.9 million. That’s space the team could use to re-sign a veteran or two, such as receiver Andre Roberts or defensive end Matt Shaughnessy.

There’s a catch, however. The Cardinals will take a cap charge of $6.5 million against the cap in 2014: $4.2 million of the signing bonus they paid Brown in 2012, and $2.3 million of the bonus they paid this week.

Sauce

I was wondering how Pit fit Levi under their cap. Hopefully this means that because we did Pit a solid, the draft pick coming back is a 5th that can be converted to a 4th & not a 6th converted to a 5th.

This should also tell you how close Keim was cutting Levi.