Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson has become eligible for a new contract. He presumably wants one.
During a Tuesday visit to Pro Football Talk on NBCSN, Peterson declined to rule out the possibility of a holdout aimed at getting it.
“I can’t speak on that right now,” Peterson said when asked whether a holdout is out of the question. “Me and my agent, we haven’t talked about some of those possibilities. But hopefully we can get something done. If something were to happen, we restructure my deal or anything like that, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
The Cardinals picked up plenty of cap space on Tuesday, via the renegotiation of receiver Larry Fitzgerald’s contract. That gives the Cardinals the ability to reward Peterson, whose rookie deal was dramatically reduced thanks to a rookie wage scale aimed at protecting the NFL’s team from busts.
Still, a holdout would cost Peterson -- via daily fines in the amount of $30,000 per day and the potential forfeiture of a chunk of his $11.9 million signing bonus.
Of course, that didn’t stop Peterson’s agent, Joel Segal, from holding out Titans running back Chris Johnson in 2011. Absent a new contract that meets Peterson’s satisfaction, it may not stop Peterson from doing the same thing.