Pittsburgh Steelers star wide receiver, Antonio Brown
It’s time to trade Antonio Brown. Yes, you heard me right. You should swallow your pride and trade away arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL. Here are a few reasons why.
Out of six games so far this season, Brown has performed very well in four of those games (an average of 25.95 points) and very poor in two games (an average of 8.2 points). Overall, I would be happy with his production if I was a Brown owner. Every receiver is going to have a week or so where they underperform, fantasy speaking. However, the thing that worries me a bit is that he hasn’t surpassed 80 yards receiving since week 3. He will try to accomplish this in week 7 against the New England Patriots.
Earlier today news broke that Big Ben could potentially miss 4-6 weeks with a knee injury. Anyone that owned Brown last year is currently cringing with this news. Not only did Brown struggle while Ben was out last season, he flat out disappeared. He was less relevant than abstinence during the ’70s. In the four games that Roethlisberger missed last season Brown averaged 4.25 receptions, 58.75 yards and a big goose egg in touchdowns. You would expect that kind of production from, say, Tyler Lockette, but definitely not Antonio Brown.
The point that I am trying to make is that this is now an integral part of the fantasy season. If Big Ben misses six weeks that would mark his return for week 13. Guess what? Most fantasy playoffs start in week 13. If history shows us anything, and usually it does but people like to pretend that it doesn’t exist so it inherently continues to repeat itself, but I digress, Brown demonstrated a constant poor play with Roethlisberger out of the lineup. If that poor play translates to this season over the course of six weeks, well, then I hate to break it to you, but you will most likely be sitting on the outside looking in when the playoffs start. But hey, Big Ben will be back in week 13 and you will then be the favorite to win the consolation bracket.
I can almost guarantee that if you put AB on the trading block you will be able to get great value out of him. Couple him with an RB2 or RB3 and you should be able to get a WR1 and RB1 in return. Just saying, these 4-6 weeks are a crucial part in the season when configuring the playoff ranking order. I advise you to defy history and write your own story, without Antonio Brown.