* In cased you missed it, this is what set Antonio Brown off:
I don't see any good way of resolving this short of getting rid of him. Not only did the incident happen, but now it is Thursday before the game and he is absent from practice again. The absences from training camp have possibly obscured the severity of being AWOL from practice on game week. That is another escalation. I don't see how the Raiders can just excuse what has happened, and even if it was possible, I don't see AB taking responsibility sufficiently to allow both sides to step things back down.
* Mayock should just say "f**k this" and go back to NFL Network. Don't ever agree to be a puppet GM. I don't believe for one minute that Antonio Brown was Mayock's idea.
* Interesting thing I saw on the Raiders final 53 man depth chart: Trent Brown has been moved to right tackle, and Kolton Miller at left tackle. When the Raiders signed Brown, they paid him left tackle money ($16.5m/yr average). That number was a small incremental notch above the previous left tackle top contract, which averages $16m/yr. But with Brown on the right side, he's now the highest paid right tackle by a significant margin - the previous right tackle high was $12m/yr! It's pretty clear that Brown was signed to be a franchise left tackle, and come the start of the season, he's not even a starting left tackle.
Too bad Hard Knocks ignored this story too. They wanted Brown to be left tackle because Kolton Miller was so bad last year. Brown will no doubt improve things on the right side (Brandon Parker was ranked 79th out of 80 tackles at PFF last year), but they obviously were expecting more from Brown, no matter how much they say "we treat the right and left side the same".
* The good Josh Allen reminds me of Khalil Mack when he was a rookie. Mack only had 4 sacks as a rookie, but he was just a disruptive force all over. That's what Josh Allen looked like against Miami's 1st team in preseason week 3, to the extent that Jags DC Todd Wash started talking about adjusting some of his defensive schemes to get Allen on the field alongside Calais Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue, rather than just rotating into their spots. Speaking of Mayock and the Raiders, I'll never understand how they saw fit to pass on Allen to take Clelin Ferrell. So far, Ferrell has done basically nothing.
* As I was typing this post, NFL Network did a roundtable question, "who will be the most important rookie this season?". Kurt Warner's pick was Josh Allen, and while he was talking about Allen, the producers were rolling footage of the other Josh Allen instead. Someone noticed because the footage abruptly cut off, but not after showing the Bills QB completing a couple of passes (one of which went for like 8 yards, amazing highlights!)
* Trent Williams continues to hold out in Washington. Speaking of which, Washington completely blew it when sitting there and watching Houston give a ton away to get Laremy Tunsil. Washington's insistence that Williams will rejoin them seems based in wishful thinking and, as Mike Florio put it, #fakenews.
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