Listening to Q's interview with Irvin yesterday was just flat out depressing. I do happen to believe pretty much everything Q is saying regarding the handling of his contract and sad to say I'm not the least bit surprised about any of it.
For them to send Graves an offer and not hear back from him for 2 weeks and basically have to run him down to talk to him is just plain ridiculous, especially given the contract he was supposed to have been working on at the time for Dansby never got anywhere. That is not professional and certainly not the way I would expect any GM to treat any player let alone (arguably) the best player on your team. I think that contributed a lot to the slap in the face feeling that Q had once he finally did present him an offer with no guaranteed money. Honestly If I were Q I'd feel the exact same way.
Graves is a failure 100x over and I said it at the time and I will continue to say it until he is gone, the Cards proved to me that they were not making every last possible effort to turn the franchise into a winner when they canned Green yet promoted and extended Graves instead of cleaning house and bringing in a respected GM with a proven track record and letting him have complete control over all football decisions. They decided to stick with the same ol same ol despite the track record of utter futility. It's the Bidwill's right to have whomever they want running the show and to dabble as they see fit however they have proven they are completely clueless as to how to build and sustain a winning team in there time here in Arizona, so to me as much as they try to preach they aren't, they are indeed the same old sorry ass Cardinals.
I guess I have no choice but to man up and accept it for what it is and pray for that miracle season in 08 we've been waiting for for so long because I have no idea what this team is going to look like in the very near future.
It was reported that Rosenhaus waited over a month to respond to the Cards' offer, which was made in the time frame that they told Rosenhaus he and Q needed to work inside of...thus frittering away that window of opportunity.
Q and Rosenhaus were told that if a deal couldn't be reached in that window of opportunity, one would not be able to be reached afterward.
Q and Rosenhaus decided to wait...they wanted to see what Fitz was getting and then they wanted a trade.
To blame this on Graves is totally unfair, IMO. He's done more with player contracts since he's been here than any other previous GM. Just because he doesn't cave in to a player's and a greedy agent's demands, doesn't mean he isn't doing his job.
Quite frankly, I think what he did this off-season was a major coup. Fitz could have forced the team's hand and made them pay him $16M this year...to get Fitz signed in light of that was outstanding. Also, as we have seen thus far in free agency, he made the most of acquiring good free agents on a limited budget...and he got every draft pick signed virtually on time (save an extra day or two for DRC, which was ok in my book, all things considered). In addition he worked the phones well enough to persuade some highly coveted UCFAs such as Ali Highsmith to sign here. It's looking like this year's crop of rookies is about as good from top to bottom as we have ever had.
There are also budget constraints...the Bidwills don't own Microsoft...there's only so many millions of guaranteeed money they can throw around each year.
And there are cap ramifications to consider.
Boldin has his own agenda...he wants out of Arizona. That's the problem. He says the Cardinals promised him a contract. Did the Cardinals offer him one? YES. He didn't like it. And his agent took over a month to respond. All part of the agenda. Now Q is trashing the organization...the same organization that sent him a cool $10M up front for a renewed contract after his second year, when they could have made Q play for his 2nd rounder money the next two years.
And...if you recall...one of the last times the Cardinals ripped up a 2nd round contract and offered millions after two years, they got burned because the player turned out to play far below what the contract was worth. His name was Jake Plummer.
So...in spite of that recent history, Graves and the Bidwills went ahead with Boldin and threw $22.5M at him with $10M guaranteed.
Times have definitely changed in Arizona. The Bidwills and RG deserve credit, not blame.
