After two years of trying to get the Arizona Cardinals to tear up the balance of his existing contract or trade him to a team that will, receiver Anquan Boldin said after Saturday night’s loss to the Saints that he won’t ask for a trade during the offseason.
“I’m going to let it play out,” Boldin told Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald.
Boldin has a year left on his current contract, and he has wanted a new deal since Larry Fitzgerald leveraged a back-loaded rookie contract into a four-year, $40 million contract in early 2008.
It appears that Boldin finally has realized that, once he signed his name to a multi-year deal, the team acquired all the leverage.
“I can’t do anything one way or the other,” he told Salguero. “If I go to them and request a trade, it don’t matter. I’m under contract for another year. So no matter what I say or do, that won’t change anything. I’m under contract for another year. So whatever happens, it depends on what the Cardinals want to do. I’m not worried about it at all.”
From the Cardinals’ perspective, it makes sense to move Boldin. With the development of players like Steve Breaston and Early Doucet, the time arguably has come to get value for Boldin before he walks away via free agency.