Bills Mafia remains thankful that Buffalo rejected Antonio Brown in 2019 trade talks

Disgraced NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown continues to lose points among NFL onlookers, but the Buffalo Bills stay winning after failing to trade for Brown. 

In what is one of the most precipitous downfalls in sports history, Antonio Brown went from being the defining NFL wide receiver of the 2010s and a surefire Hall of Famer to a pariah of the NFL community.

As if Brown couldn’t be more detested by the general public, he’s decided to pile onto former teammate and apparently former friend Tom Brady, who went to bat for Brown on two different teams. In both instances, Brown was booted for offensive behavior, first for sexual misconduct allegations and then for disrespecting the Buccaneers coaching staff mid-game. Somehow, Brown has twisted Brady’s willingness to help as a willingness to exploit Brown, so now Brown is callously exploiting Brady’s personal life for literal profit: by selling merch of Brown embracing Brady’s ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen.

In a recent interview, Brown responded to a line of direct questioning on the matter with his usual nonsensical evasiveness, stating that his “parodie” t-shirt features “an image that really happened.”

Brown has made it clear that he’s mocking Brady’s divorce on social media several times, but once again, espouses nonsense when confronted about his intentions.

And once again, Bills fans are thankful when reminded that they “dodged a nuclear warhead” by failing to trade for Antonio Brown. In an alternate reality, perhaps Brown would have been locked into a costly Bills contract and could have been dragging Josh Allen instead for perceived slights.

Even Bills fans who have spent decades hating Brady wouldn’t sink to the depths Brown now trudges in.

Bills franchise dodged a bullet by failing to trade for Antonio Brown

Bills fans remember this moment fondly and are quick to bring it up whenever Antonio Brown is trending for all the wrong reasons.

NFL Mocks’ Sayre Bedinger noted last year that “the Buffalo Bills are a great example that sometimes the deal you don’t make is the best one for your franchise.”

On March 7, 2019, reports emerged that the Pittsburgh Steelers and Buffalo Bills were working on a deal that would send Brown to the Bills for substantial draft capital.

By the morning, the Bills were out “amid uncertainty.” Turns out they had plenty of reason to be uncertain about investing in Brown, who has now bailed out of and publicly derided several NFL franchises.

Context is key, though. This was after Josh Allen’s rookie season, and his receivers were  Zay Jones, Robert Foster, and Isaiah McKenzie, as Bedinger noted.

The lineup didn’t look great at the time, but the Bills would turn out to have the last laugh. The Bills have the quarterback of the future in Allen, entered the season as the primary Super Bowl favorite, brought in Cole Beasley and Stefon Diggs in addition to Gabe Davis, and have rapidly become one of the NFL’s premier passing offenses.

It may have been tough at the time to turn down what was still the NFL’s best receiver, but cooler heads prevailed on this one.

As for AB, he did indeed get a Super Bowl ring to round out an illustrious career on the field. It’s his career off the field that makes this loss an overall win for Bills Mafia.