Sports Time Radio

If your a member of the Oakland Raiders front office, a teammate or just a fan of the team. How are you feeling about the acquisition of Antonio Brown?

According to the numbers he outs up Brown is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. Over the past 6 seasons he’s had no less than 101 receptions, 1284 yards and 8 touchdowns. As you can see contributing on the field isn’t the problem with Brown; it’s just about everything else that comes with being an NFL player.

Brown has yet to be a full participant at Raiders training camp since it opened last week. Now most everybody thought that Brown was out due to a cryotherapy accident that caused severe frostbite to his feet, but apparently there was another issue.

It was reported yesterday that Brown has threatened to retire if he’s not allowed to wear a 10 year old helmet.

The issue with the helmet actually started in May when the NFL announced that they would be ended the one year grace period for certain models of helmets. One of which was a model Brown prefers to wear.

The reason for this ruling by the NFL was that the style of helmet Brown wants to wear fell short in laboratory testing for head impact severity.

As you know the NFL has been hit with lawsuits from former players about the long term affect the physical play of football has had on them and the concussions they’ve suffered.

I’m sure you’ve heard the term CTE which stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. It’s a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head injuries. CTE is a big complaint in these lawsuits; so you can understand why the NFL would want to improve safety. Part of that would be finding helmets that protects players better.

All equipment mangers where required to remove all of these now banned helmets and players where informed that these helmets would no longer be NFL approved during Phase Three OTA’s which is the first time players are allowed to wear helmets during o field workouts.

On the first day of Raiders OTA’s Brown requested his old helmet and was told that he would no longer be allowed to wear it. As I’m sure you can guess Brown was quite upset by this and seems to be under the impression that he is being single out as he pointed to quarterbacks Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers not being subject to this rule change. Now I did see a small notation in an article that Brady was unhappy with the helmet change, but he hasn’t voiced his displeasure to the extent that Brown has. As for Rodgers I haven’t heard anything from him about the new helmet rules.

Brown has filed a grievance with the NFL over the league’s enforcement of helmet regulations. He was schedule for a hearing with a neutral independent arbitrator on Friday, but the results of that hearing have yet to be released.

Raiders coaches and Brown’s teammates have called this “honestly the most insane thing I have ever heard of” adding that “I don’t know why it’s so important to him, it doesn’t make sense”.

Would Brown actual follow through with his threat to retire. The Raiders acquired Brown from the Pittsburgh Steelers for a 3rd and a 5th round pick this past draft. Oakland then signed Brown to a 3 year $50,125,000 dollar deal. Brown’s deal included a $1 million dollar signing bonus with $30,125,000 of his money being guaranteed. Over the three years Brown will make an average of $16,708,333 per season.

Do you see Brown retiring and walking away from his new contract if he doesn’t get his way?

Now I don’t know about you, but I thought that July 31st would be the end of trades in Major League Baseball, but apparently I was wrong.

It seems that if a player isn’t on a major league deal he can be dealt and while there won’t be any major names traded because they’re not signed to minor league deals there might be a name dealt that you might know.

I’ve seen three of the deals so far. The Los Angeles Angels acquired left handed pitcher Miguel Del Pozo from the Texas Rangers. The Minnesota Twins acquired outfielder Ian Miller from the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners also sent catcher Jose Lobaton to the Los Angels Dodgers for cash considerations.

Like I said I doubt will be seeing any well known names get traded and I think I was more confused than anything else. I was under the impression that the trade deadline meant no more trades.

To everyone’s surprise the New York Mets where actually buyers at the trade deadline, but it seems to be working out their way.

The Mets have won 15 of their past 17 games and have moved themselves to within 1/2 of a National League wild card spot. As of right now the Washington Nationals and the Milwaukee Brewers are holding onto the two National League wild card spots. The Mets are tied with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies just 1/2 game behind.

Remember at the trade deadline the Mets where going to deal Noah Syndergaard and or Zach Wheeler, but instead they added Marcus Stroman. Most people thought that the Mets added Stroman in hopes of flipping him to a contender. Well as it turned out the Mets where that contender.

To be fair the Mets did go on their run against the Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins, but you have to beat the teams that are on your schedule and that’s just what the Mets did. Last night the Mets kept their winning streak alive with a 7-6 walk off win over the Nationals.

Do you think that the Mets can keep their momentum going and find their way into a National Playoff spot? Or now that the schedule has change; will they start to return to the way they played earlier in the season?

You can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the podcast live all you have to do is head over to TuneIn.com and you can listen any time you want.

Don’t forget that you can follow me on Twitter @Burketime