Tony Jefferson was "disrespected" by Cardinals offer

Steve Keim has done a marvelous job of getting the Arizona Cardinals to not only being competitive, but raised expectations of what the Arizona Cardinals are and should be.

Yet, with the news coming out about what happened between the Cardinals and Tony Jefferson in the Cardinals initial pursuit to retain his services, you do wonder what happened?

Keim botched the initial offer after having what seemed like the perfect reading of the market for Jefferson in the 2016 offseason.

“They low-balled me,” said Jefferson to MMQB’s Andy Benoit. “The very first offer, which was disrespectful, was three [years] for $12 [million], with $6 million guaranteed. We didn’t even reply to that."

While it makes sense that the Cardinals would try to get a slight discount on Jefferson, why would they think three years $12 million would get the job done?

Most market analysis of the safety position said $6 million a year would be where Jefferson would be at. How did Keim and the Cardinals arrive at $4 million a year? Did they realize it would cause strife and make their pursuit of Jefferson over at that point?

Was this just an instance of an executive overplaying their hand or is there more too it?

Only way we'll know is by what happens the next couple of years.