Roddy White had a miserable start to the 2013 season, but he finished with 43 catches for 502 yards in the last five games to show there was some life left in his bones.
The question of how much life is one that’s sure to come up for the Falcons this season. Lowering his cap number from $6.325 million in the final year of his contract would help the Falcons patch some other holes and that’s something they can accomplish by giving him an extension. White gave the team some idea of how long he’d like to keep playing this week.
“How many more years? I think three or four,” White said, via Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com. “I don’t want to be an ironman like Tony [Gonzalez]. He was blessed to go through his stint in the NFL because 17 seasons is a long time to play football, man. I was thinking if I could just get 10, I’ll be all right.”
Next season will be White’s 10th and General Manager Thomas Dimitroff sounds open to the idea of keeping White around beyond that.
“Roddy’s made it very clear that he wants to be back here for the duration of his career and he’s obviously been a beyond-fine football player for us,” Dimitroff said. “So we’re hoping that he will be able to do that.”
Having a healthy White and Julio Jones with better offensive line play would make life much easier for the Falcons offense next season. White can’t help on the Jones front, but an extension would help get that better line play if the Falcons spend the savings wisely.