Cardinals safety Antrel Rolle’s future in the desert is looking hazy thanks to a $12.1 million salary in 2010 and he’s already spent some time thinking about where he might head if he parts ways with the NFC West champs.
Rolle spoke with Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald and told him that he enjoys playing for Arizona but wouldn’t mind coming home to play for the Dolphins.
“That would be nice,” Rolle told me. “You know what I mean. I would love
to take some of the burden off of mom and dad seeing as they travel to
every game. Miami is home for me. I haven’t played here in five years,
but hey, we can make it happen.”
Rolle said earlier this week that he won’t take a paycut to remain with the Cardinals, which makes his departure a real possibility. Despite that and the discussion of the Dolphins, Rolle was still talking about Arizona as if he sees himself playing there in 2010. He called Kurt Warner’s retirement “bittersweet” and shared his thoughts on Warner’s presumptive successor Matt Leinart.
“Leinert, I think his time is up right now,” Rolle said. “It’s time for
him to produce and be the player that Matt knows he can be and the
player we all know he can be. We’re going to be behind him 100 percent
of the way and I think he’ll do a good job there.”
Still, Rolle sounds like a man who is thinking about playing for the Dolphins and not just because he has a desire to eat his mother’s cooking more often. He told Salguero that he has kept abreast of the Dolphins’ personnel situation and knows that they may be looking to make a change from Gibril Wilson at free safety.
Rolle, who will play in Sunday’s Pro Bowl, had 72 tackles, four interceptions and 1.5 sacks during the 2009 season. Wilson had 93 tackles and one sack for the Dolphins.