First of all, I wanted to thank Chris for his awesome work Thursday while I was "indisposed". Apparently the people at work expect me to get paid for some things. The nerve, I know. One thing that Chris touched on was Drew Rosenhaus. I wanted to provide my take on it too.
It's pretty evident that super-agent Drew Rosenhaus will lay foundations that are partly (if not completely) untrue driving the market towards his interests. That is, after all, what an agent does. However, Rosenhaus (who we've nicknamed Oil Slick for a long time now) isn't without probable damage to his clients. Last year, we believed that it was Rosenhaus that masterminded Chad Johnson's character suicide campaign. That was evident when Oil Slick left Cincinnati to negotiate Plaxico Burress' two-year contact extension (which came to five years, $35 million) and surprisingly Chad Johnson returned to the fold; with such good behavior that he seemed sedated. From then to now, Johnson is viewed as an incredibly selfish player, challenging Terrell Owens' for most annoying wide receiver even though the 30-plus year old receiver produced the worst season of his career.
This week Rosenhaus sent a letter to all 32 teams, Mike Garafolo of the Star-Ledger reported, promoting that Plaxico Burress, Anquan Boldin and Chad Johnson are available via trade. At first we wondered why 32 teams, considering that the 32nd team would be the team that the wide receiver is playing for. Then we realized that the letter would likely have the most effect, therefore causing teams to focus on Rosenhaus' clients, if not working out extensions that directly inflate Oil Slick's banks.
“Let me clarify the rules. Teams cannot talk to an agent about a player who is under contract, but there’s no limits on what an agent can try and do to help his client,” Rosenhaus explained. “You know, the bottom line is that I get paid by my clients to advance their agenda, not the teams’ agendas. And there’s no rule that prohibits me from talking to teams about any of my clients.”
Oil Slick also said, “Let me just say in general that as an agent I can do whatever I want."
So what about Chad Johnson? After all, it seemed that he was cool being in Cincinnati now, and that all the disgruntled BS that he promoted last year was behind us. Joe Reedy grabs a Rosenhaus quote about that:
“You know, here’s the deal with Chad. Last year we were very outspoken about what we wanted. This year we are going to operate behind the scenes. The bottom line is that’s a communication thing that is going to take place completely between myself and the Bengals organization.”
What's there to communicate? Even if there's a trade to be worked out, Johnson's no longer valuable enough to give us any type of return. A trade would only reduce the selfishness in the team's lockerroom that he's characterized as. Furthermore, which team out there would offer the extension that Oil Slick believes that Johnson is worth?
In the end, I'm more inclined to be soft on Johnson with this, because we've seen when Oil Slick becomes active in Johnson's affairs, that's when we begin hating on Johnson.