from PFT
On the surface, everything appears to be fine. Arizona Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin wants a new contract, realizes he’s not going to get one that reflects his market value, and plans to honor the final three years of the deal before moving on.
Since Boldin shared his views on the matter several weeks ago, the story has died. The far bigger issues that have trickled out of camp relate to the struggles to produce healthy bodies at the center position, and the question of whether Kurt Warner will get his wish for an actual competition at the quarterback position.
But there’s a full-blown cold war between Boldin and the team. As we hear it, Boldin and coach Ken Whisenhunt have not communicated — at all — for the entire training camp and preseason. Boldin and none of the coaches are speaking, and Boldin has generally kept to himself.
This one runs deeper than the same-old contract squabbles. When the team opted to escape the cap crunch created by the back end of receiver Larry Fitzgerald’s rookie deal by giving him a four-year, $40 million contract, a huge disparity was created between two comparable players. For every dollar Boldin earns in 2008, Fitzgerald will get four.
The ratio doesn’t get much better in 2009 or 2010, the final two years of Boldin’s contract.
And, yes, a contract is a contract. However, when a team gives so much money to one of the two best wideouts in the game and doesn’t take care of the other one, it creates a serious problem.
The same dynamic plays out in workplaces throughout the country. Two people do the same job, and perform at about the same level. Each of them thinks in his or her heart that he’s more valuable than the other. So if one is getting rewarded significantly more than the other, the other naturally will feel unappreciated, and disrespected.
The Cardinals’ apparent plan is to get through the 2008 season with a $2.5 million salary to Boldin, and then to try to trade Boldin. They plan to re-start negotiations with Boldin later in the season, but unless they’re prepared to pay him in the same ballpark as Fitzgerald, a deal isn’t likely. In the interim, the team won’t give Boldin and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, permission to attempt to line up a suitable trade.
The reality is that the Cardinals have two No. 1 wideouts, but have chosen to pay only one of them accordingly. And, as a practical matter, they can’t pay two of them $10 million per year.
Though Boldin, by all appearances, doesn’t intend to launch a 2005 T.O.-style effort to get out of town, the fact that the relationship between player and team has deteriorated to the point of no communication is every bit as undesirable as the salary-cap conundrum that Fitzgerald’s contract created.
This one’s even more potentially disruptive, even if Boldin does nothing to be disruptive. Fitzgerald’s situation played out in the offseason. Boldin’s case is unfolding at a time when it’s important to get and to keep everyone on the same page.
The challenge for the Cardinals is to decide whether they want one more year of Fitzgerald and Boldin under the present circumstances, or whether they want to get what they can for Boldin and move on.
The problem is that, as the 2008 regular season approaches, other teams will be less inclined to bring in a key new player, pay him huge money, and scramble to get him ready to play.
