There’s a rule of thumb in the agent world that, if an agent claims multiple teams are interested in a free agent but names none of the teams, there may be no interested teams. Some may express similar skepticism regarding the Steelers’ public claim that three teams have reached out about receiver Antonio Brown, while keeping the names of the teams private.
While it wouldn’t make sense for the Steelers to out the teams that have reached out, it’s impossible to know whether three or two or even one have reached out when the team with an obvious interest in maximizing the perceived interest in the player controls the message.
As MDS pointed out earlier today, the claim that three of 31 teams have contacted the Steelers means that 28 definitely haven’t, even though owner Art Rooney II made it clear that Brown is available more than six weeks ago.
So which teams are the three teams, assuming there are three teams? At this point, it’s anyone’s guess. It’s also anyone’s guess as to whether the interest is serious. But there’s no guesswork needed to know that, as explained previously, it won’t be easy to do a deal, because the Steelers will want what they want, Brown will want what he wants, and the new team will have to ask itself whether it wants the potential risk that goes along with the potential reward.