Disgruntled Boldin to fire super-agent Rosenhaus

Betallsports · May 27, 2009

Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin is in the process of firing his agent Drew Rosenhaus

Boldin, in a long contract dispute with the team, informed the NFL Players Association in a letter that he wanted to replace the agent. The players association says it received the letter on Friday, so with the required five-day waiting period, Boldin can sign with a new agent on Thursday.
Boldin is expected to sign with Creative Arts Agency (CAA), a source told FOXSports.com's Alex Marvez.
Rosenhaus issued a statement saying he has "great respect" for Boldin.
"I'm hopeful we can work things out and he will return to the Rosenhaus Sports family in the near future," Rosenhaus said.
Boldin has been looking for a trade out of Arizona for a full year now. He first asked to be traded last offseason when the Cardinals refused to give him a contract extension. After the team failed to move him, Boldin caught 89 passes for 1,038 yards and 11 touchdowns in the 2008 season, earning him his third Pro Bowl selection.
Boldin sat out minicamp with what he said was a sore hamstring. He has not participated in any of the Cardinals' voluntary workouts the last two weeks.
Quarterback Kurt Warner has been outspoken in his desire to get Boldin back with the team. "Maybe Anquan felt that there was a sticking point there and that this is going to free some things up and allow them to have a different approach coming forward and work better with the Cardinals," Warner said after the workout on Tuesday. "I really don't know. I don't want to speculate on the reasons behind it all but I think I've had hope from day one that they can get something done."

Boldin has been represented by Rosenhaus since being drafted out of Florida State in the second round by Arizona in 2003. He signed a four-year, $22.75 million extension with Arizona in August of 2006, a deal that keeps him under contract through the 2010 campaign. He has a base salary of about $2.75 million next season and $3 million in 2010.
Linebacker Karlos Dansby, who also has an unsettled contract situation, said for Boldin to part from an agent who has represented him his entire career is "huge for him."
"Hopefully the ball will get bouncing and hopefully he'll be back out here on the field and be comfortable that his situation will get handled," Dansby said. Boldin has renewed his request for a trade this offseason, and last month Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt confirmed that teams had been contacting Arizona about Boldin's availability.

bigtendominator · May 27, 2009

Its about time. Rosenhaus is not a good agent, but most of these guys don't realize it until its too late.

DIRECTVPOLICE · May 27, 2009

it's about time others fired that douche also

hno:

DocJS · May 27, 2009

In the picture dictionary of life under "sleazy dirt bag" is a picture of Drew Rosenhaus.

5teamparlay · Dec 7, 2009

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_y...morningrush120709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns&print=1

Cards’ Boldin worthy of pay raise

By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports 7 hours, 39 minutes ago

Printable View

Follow Michael Silver at Mogotxt and Twitter.

The Vikings couldn't stop Boldin in the first half.
(Paul Connors/AP Photo)

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Five minutes into Sunday night’s showdown between NFC contenders on the road to repeating as division champions, the Arizona Cardinals were in trouble.

The formidable Minnesota Vikings had already forced a fumble and taken a seven-point lead on a Brett Favre (notes) touchdown pass, and the 64,121 fans at University of Phoenix Stadium braced themselves for a replay of the Vikes’ blowout victory here a year ago. Having missed the previous game while recovering from a concussion, Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner (notes) seemed a vulnerable target for All-Pro defensive end Jared Allen (notes) and the rest of Minnesota’s physical defense.
More From Michael Silver

And then, with an inimitable mixture of blunt force and sublime skill, Anquan Boldin (notes) put the Cards on his back and carried them to their most impressive victory since last January’s NFC championship game.

After that historic triumph, which put Arizona in its first Super Bowl, Boldin threw a bizarrely timed tantrum over his lack of involvement in the offense and left the stadium as if he were auditioning for a role in “Gone in 60 Seconds.”

On Sunday, following the Cardinals’ 30-17 thumping of the Vikings, a far happier Boldin stuck around to talk about the message he and his team had just sent to the rest of the league: While most people have been fixated on the undefeated New Orleans Saints and the Vikings, who’d lost just once before Sunday, as the teams to beat in the NFC, the defending conference champs remain a force to be reckoned with as the stretch run commences.

“I definitely wanted to set a tone,” Boldin said. “When one of us starts out big like that, it puts pressure on a defense and opens it up for everybody, and people feed off each other.”

In this case, “us” was a reference to Boldin and fellow Pro Bowl wideout Larry Fitzgerald (notes), the NFL’s most dangerous receiving tandem.

Fitzgerald, 26, is in the second year of a four-year, $40 million contract befitting of his status as perhaps the NFL’s best receiver.

Boldin, meanwhile, is in the third year of a four-year extension – reportedly worth just below $16 million – he signed in July 2005. By NFL standards, he is vastly underpaid, and he’s not happy about it. A three-time Pro Bowl selection, Boldin, 29, has been disgruntled with his deal for more than a year, to the point where he has tried to force a trade on more than one occasion.

Unable to convince the Cardinals to meet his price, Boldin has retaliated by making opponents pay.

On Sunday, he provided a persuasive presentation as to why he’s so valuable to the Cards – and why, though it might defy conventional football wisdom, the franchise should step up and offer him a significant bump in pay.

I’ll start with the simplest and most compelling argument for devoting that much salary-cap space to one position: Having two game-changers at wideout, and a savvy, supremely accurate quarterback who can get them the ball, is what elevates the Cardinals’ offense from explosive to exquisite.

“It makes us pretty special, doesn’t it?” Warner asked rhetorically after NFC West-leading Arizona (8-4) moved to within two games of NFC North-leading Minnesota (10-2) in the race for a first-round bye. “Those two guys feed off each other, make each other better and help us set a tone in games like this.”

On Sunday, while Fitzgerald was still waiting for a table at the restaurant, it was the ravenous Boldin who took the first bite. After the Vikings went up 7-0, he caught three passes on Arizona’s next drive, which ended with a punt. Then, after No. 3 wideout Steve Breaston (notes) returned a Chris Kluwe (notes) punt to Minnesota’s 2-yard line, Boldin slipped out of the backfield and caught a quick throw from Warner for a game-tying touchdown.

Boldin made two more catches on the Cardinals’ next series, converting third downs on each occasion. And with 7:51 remaining in the first half, Boldin put Arizona ahead for good on a masterful 39-yard touchdown reception that’s hard to do justice with words.

Shadowed tightly down the left sideline by Vikings cornerback Cedric Griffin (notes), Boldin turned his head at the precise moment and reached up with his right hand to snatch Warner’s willowy throw to his back shoulder. After catching the pass at the Minnesota 25, Boldin rambled ahead and dodged several defenders en route to the end zone.

“I know it might look weird,” Warner said, “but to us, that play is ‘open.’ ”

Said Boldin: “It’s so big to have a guy like Kurt that trusts you that much. It’s almost like an unspoken language. It’s incredible; I see what he sees. Sometimes we’ll be watching film and I’ll think, ‘I can’t believe he threw that.’ Before we’re even out of our breaks, he throws the ball. That’s the kind of trust of he has. And believe me, it’s the product of a lot of repetition and work in practice – a lot of things you don’t see.”

By game’s end the Vikings’ defensive backs felt as though they were seeing double. At halftime Boldin had seven catches for 98 yards and the Cardinals led 21-10. Though “Q” didn’t add to that total in the second half, he did throw a hellacious block that helped spring Fitzgerald (eight catches, 143 yards, one touchdown) on a seven-yard swing pass inside the red zone with four minutes left in the third quarter, setting up the second of Neil Rackers’(notes) three field goals.

“Q gets everything jump-started,” Fitzgerald said afterward. “Everybody feeds off his intensity. It’s like a pool that bubbles over, and guys get a cup and drink the libation.

“To me, he’s a warrior, and he makes everybody better. I want to play the rest of my career with a guy like that.”

Translation: Pay the man. It’s a message Warner, before and after re-signing with the team following his terrific ’08 campaign, wasn’t shy about sharing with management. The team’s defensive leader, Pro Bowl strong safety Adrian Wilson (notes), eagerly enunciated those same sentiments on Sunday.

“Yeah, they should [pay him],” Wilson said. “Q is our guy. If he wasn’t on our team, that’d be like the Ravens letting Ray Lewis (notes) go. You know what I’m saying?”

Absolutely – without the physical, passionate Boldin, the Cards would lose some of their aggressive identity. I also know, however, that the Cardinals’ owners, the Bidwills, are notoriously cheap; and that Boldin, for all his willingness to play through pain, could be classified as injury-prone and is pushing 30.

The conventional move would be to let Boldin play out his current deal and leave via free agency, slide Breaston into the No. 2 role and invest the money the team saved in a key player (or players) at other positions.

It doesn’t take a psychic to see that this is probably where the situation is headed, possibly without the investing-in-other-players component.



“Yeah, they should [pay him]. Q is our guy. If he wasn’t on our team, that’d be like the Ravens letting Ray Lewis go. You know what I’m saying?”

– Cards safety Adrian Wilson on teammate Anquan Boldin



“They won’t pay him,” predicted defensive tackle Darnell Dockett (notes), another standout who has unsuccessfully lobbied for a new deal. “He’ll have to go somewhere else to get it. But one way or the other, he’ll get what he deserves.”

I suspect that Dockett is right, but I’d like to see the team take a shot at keeping Boldin in Arizona. If the Cards came at him with an upgraded deal that, while not in Fitzgerald’s financial neighborhood, put him closer in line with most of the league’s other top wideouts, perhaps he’d surprise them and stay put.

Boldin, for all his frustration during the past 15 months, has never let it get in the way of business once he suits up. He goes hard, plays through injuries and puts his body on the line for the cause as willingly as any NFL wideout.

His post NFC championship game hissy fit seems to have been an anomaly, and at least he had the good sense not to compound the spectacle by making inflammatory comments.

“It’s not one of those things you harp on,” he said Sunday night. “I don’t live in the past. You can’t change it; the only thing you can do is learn from it. I live in the moment.”

In the moment, Boldin is helping the Cardinals close in on a second consecutive NFC West title – they can clinch with a victory over the 49ers (5-7) in San Francisco next Monday night – and try to become the first team of this decade to defy the Curse of the Super Bowl Loser and go deep into the playoffs the following year.

What will happen after that, he can’t predict.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The things I can’t control, I don’t worry about. It’s out of my hands.”

The footballs Warner’s throwing his way? Those are very much in his hands, as the Vikings found out on Sunday.