Fantasy Football

With the dwindling number of NFL headlines, it’s making it easier and easier for me too mail-in my responsibilities for this site. It’s kinda nice, actually, not having to do anything. I could get used to it in June. Basically the only news circulating of any relevance is the ongoing Anquan Boldin saga, and the will he or won’t he speculation pertaining to his tenure with the Cardinals. The news this time around? He intends to fire his agent (note: he has since officially left Rosenhaus).

There are a couple of things about this story that I love and hate. One, I loathe Drew Rosenhaus and his self-promoting bullshit as much as the next guy who has no financial stake in the outcome of these contracts; but I’m a tad befuddled by a player firing his agent because of his inability to trade him. Because, you know, why would an agent intentionally sabotage his client’s chances of being trade and in all likelihood seeing an increase in pay, thus increasing the agent’s take home? This seems like it might be a structural problem with how the NFL and its franchises operate.

We couldn't find a picture of him with a shirt on. Sorry.

Additionally, this is kind of tantamount to the shallowness and urgency of sports reporting, particularly in the NFL. We can’t even wait for Boldin to actually bring down the hammer for the story to be reported. Some word of mouth reached the wrong guy, he told his friend at ESPN and that friend made it a story so to get the scoop. In case you feel like you’re reading this incorrectly, breaking a story before there even is a story to break is the new (arguably necessary) foundation for sports journalism, an industry growing in irrelevance that has everyone so paranoid reports are being released along the lines of “Boldin plans to change agents”.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m looking forward to the day when a Tom Brady dream is a lead story on Sportscenter. We can speculate about what it means for his future prospects, if it has any basis in this reality and if whether or not he’s going to put any stock in it. Of course, Boldin isn’t Tom Brady so he doesn’t get the same level of coverage. We have yet to analyze a state of his subconscious. He is hardly a litmus test.

All kidding aside (sort of), we can’t imagine why Boldin is so desperate to get out of Arizona. We’ve pondered this numerous times before, but it seems to suit what the majority of NFL players seek out in a franchise and what Boldin himself would look for: It’s a warm weather climate, they play in a dome, he has one quarterback who can reach him and another waiting in the wings whose showed promise, the team isn’t overly dependent on him despite being one of their biggest playmakers and he is amply compensated. What is he seeking exactly? Some misguided sense of respect after they benched him in a playoff game they won? He’s in for a world of hurt when he’s traded to New England, Tennessee or Pittsburgh or some other team accustom to winning on a regular basis and not just once every thirty or forty years.

Anyhow, if and when he’s traded we suspect his fantasy value will drop him at least five picks on average, if not more. Shit, Randy Moss’ value plummeted when he went from the Raiders to the Patriots, we can’t imagine Boldin’s fate will be any different.