Andy Reid Says Eagles Looked Into Trading For Boldin

Last year, the Eagles fired up their local fan base by pursuing free-agent wideout Randy Moss, who decided to re-up with the Patriots. This year, the Eagles admit that they looked into the possibility of trading for Eagles receiver Anquan Boldin. The concession came Tuesday from coach Andy Reid, who talked about the situation during an interview on WIP radio. Reid said that the Cardinals wanted too much, suggesting that the price was a first-round pick, a third-round pick, and a fifth-round pick. “That’s a lot of picks, No. 1,” Reid said, via the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And then you’re going to pay the guy $10 million. So you get hit on both sides of it.” In our view, Boldin would take less than $10 million per year; we think $8 million or $9 million annually would get it done. But we don’t know how much Boldin would have taken from the Eagles because the Cardinals never gave Boldin and his agent permission to shop the disgruntled receiver. As we’ve previously said, the way that the Cardinals handled the situation suggests that they really didn’t want to trade Boldin. Instead, we think that they wanted to be able to go back to Boldin and say, “Sorry, but we tried.” The Cardinals also likely wanted to avoid a situation in which a new team would have offered Boldin a deal worth more than the Cards are willing to pay. Then, if a trade couldn’t have been worked out, the Cardinals would have felt pressured to match the package that someone else had put on the table. And so the impasse between the Cardinals and Boldin will continue. Though Anquan doesn’t seem to be a situps-in-the-driveway kind of guy, we’ve got a feeling that the chip on his shoulder from 2008 will soon become a full-blown stick up his ass in 2009.