Say you're an NFL general manager. You have a player on your team who wants out, but he's under contract and you're not sure if you have a suitable replacement yet.
Naturally, you'll keep him until you do.
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| Edgerrin James can't break big gains or tackles anymore, Prisco says. (Getty Images) |
What do you do?
Here's what I do: Tell the agent to stick it.
That's basically what the Arizona Cardinals told agent Drew Rosenhaus recently when he went to the team and demanded that they release running back Edgerrin James.
The message from Rosenhaus: Start him or let him go.
The message from the team: You don't run our team. We do what we want, not what you want.
That's the way it should be.
Rosenhaus is a pit bull of an agent, which is why he's one of the best, but he sometimes rubs teams the wrong way. That's also why he has a ton of clients. Players I know who have him as an agent love him.
He fights fiercely for them.
Sometimes, though, he overextends his rights.
There is no way an agent can dictate to a team when a player is under contract. James has one year left on a four-year deal he signed in 2006. It was a deal negotiated by Rosenhaus, one that paid James $11.5 million in guaranteed money. So far, he has earned $25 million from the Cardinals.
For that, he has given them 3.6 per carry. He has rushed for 2,895 yards, which means he has been paid just under $8,700 a yard. So live with it.
I asked Rosenhaus to give his side of the story.
"It seems inevitable that the team is going to release Edgerrin," he wrote in an e-mail. "With that being the case, the right thing to do is to release E.J. now so he has a fair chance to sign on with another team. The longer the Cardinals wait to release E.J. the more damage is done to his chances of securing a new job."
In speaking with Cardinals sources, they will likely release James when they secure a capable replacement. So far, that hasn't happened. They will go into the draft looking for a young runner, but you never know. What if they don't get one?
Shouldn't they protect themselves in case they don't?
In a recent conversation with Dave Richard, one of our crack Fantasy Football writers here at CBSSports.com, James was asked if he felt like he was being held hostage.
"Yeah, but I'm gonna get out of there," he said. Two things about that comment irk me. He's a hostage?
Pay me $5 million this year and you could actually tie me to a chair and stick me in a room. The second part is that he's so sure he's getting out.
Last time I checked, that was the team's decision.
James is 31. He played decently in the Cardinals' playoff run, but he still didn't show starter talent. He takes way too long to get to the hole. He doesn't make people miss. On one play in the Super Bowl loss, he took a swing pass from Kurt Warner and appeared to have a ton of room to run. The Steelers closed on him so fast because he doesn't move well. What should have been a 10-yard gain was a 2-yard gain.
I went back and watched some tape from early last season on James, before he was benched in favor of Tim Hightower, just to make sure my assessment of him was accurate.
What I saw was a player who could be a capable grinder backup, not a starter anymore. He's still a decent receiver, but there just isn't any explosiveness. Too many times he goes down with an arm tackle.
Somebody once wrote that James was the kind of runner who could turn a 3-yard run into a 7-yard run, but would also turn a 60-yard run into a 7-yard run.
That's the difference between James and Fred Taylor, another older running back. Taylor can still go 60. James wasn't that type of runner in his best days.
Rosenhaus represents Taylor and James, and if he's honest with himself he has to know that Taylor is the better runner. Taylor got a two-year deal for about $5 million from the New England Patriots. So even if the Cardinals were to release James, what could he expect? A one-year deal that might pay him $1.5 million? Maybe.
So the so-called hostage might want to quit squawking to anyone and everyone about his miserable plight. Being a $5 million backup would be to his advantage, not Arizona's.
Edge, you aren't what you used to be. Not even close. So quit going to every media member you can find to state your case.
The Cardinals will let you go when they're good and ready. Doesn't $8,700 a yard entitle them to that?
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