A Good Theory About What Happened With Ian Rapoport and the Antonio Brown Buffalo Story

In the middle of the night, Antonio Brown was nearly traded to the Bills until he wasn’t. Here is what Ian Rapoport reported early Friday morning:

A couple hours later, Adam Schefter tweeted the following:

"Buffalo has spoken to Pittsburgh about a potential trade for WR Antonio Brown, as have a handful of other teams. Those talks occurred only in recent days. A source this morning called a Brown-to-Buffalo trade “unlikely.” Not out of the question but, at this time, “unlikely.” Another source on a potential Antonio Brown-to-Buffalo trade said it will not happen. “I don’t think the Bills trade was ever close to happening,” said one source involved in those talks. Steelers and Bills briefly talked but “this is an old story. It was dead on Wednesday.”"

This morning, Buffalo GM Brandon Beane put out this statement, via Schefter: “We inquired about Antonio Brown on Tuesday, and kept talks open with the Steelers. We had positive discussions, but ultimately it didn’t make sense for either side. As great a player as Antonio Brown is, we have moved on and our focus is on free agency.”

So, how did this happen? SiriusXM NFL host Ross Tucker had an interesting theory:

There are still some contradicting pieces of information here — Rapoport saying it was almost done early this morning, but Schefter’s source saying it was dead on Wednesday — but it does seem regardless like Antonio Brown put the kibosh on going to Buffalo.