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While the Arizona Cardinals are not yet ready to give up on Kevin Kolb as their starting quarterback, as team president Michael Bidwill said last month, it may come down to a matter of dollars and cents. Kolb, entering the third year with the Cardinals after having been traded from the Philadelphia Eagles, is due to make $9 million in salary. He is also due a $2 million roster bonus on March 15 and then a $500,000 workout bonus.
That is a lot of money and a huge cap hit ($11.5 million) for a quarterback who has not finished a season with the team yet.
With new head coach Bruce Arians, the future of Kolb is up in the air, although Arians has said that as of right now he thinks that Kolb "is good enough" to handle the job.
However, with money being a factor, he may not get the chance, unless he restructures his deal.
According to Mike Jurecki of XTRA910, Kolb is willing to discuss it.
Yes, I'm told he's open to discussing restructuring, could offer incentives. RT @the_realdizzle: if he declines 2 restructure he's gone rt?
— Mike Jurecki (@mikejurecki) February 5, 2013
It is beneficial to both sides to get this done. Even if the Cards were to release Kolb, his cap hit would be $6 million. Ideally, the team could keep his cap number right around there and keep him on the team.
As players go, they typically don't want to give up money in a restructure, but an incentive-laden deal just might work. The team could shuffle around money and still get him what he would be due, but make it based on availability and performance.
March 15 is the deadline to pay Kolb the roster bonus. There is still quite a bit of time. I would be surprised if this doesn't happen, but then again, Arians is going to go with "his guy." We don't know if Kolb is that guy or if he is the bridge to that guy.
The next month will tell us a lot.
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