Eagles Won't Pay Antrel Rolle His $8 Million Asking Price

Well, that's not exactly fair. No one is going to pay Antel Rolle $8 million per season, so it would make sense that the Eagles definitely won't come anywhere near that number.

His asking price would put him above the likes of Troy Polamalu and Ed Reed, two of the most elite safeties in the league. I believe Rolle is a very good player, but he simply isn't in the class of Polamalu and Reed.

His price most likely comes from having a sense of the thin free agent market, but he'll be sitting there until June if he expects anyone to pay him such a ludicrous amount.

There may be a team out there willing to overpay him into the area of about $6 million per season, but the Eagles will certainly not be one of them. If he has any desire to play for Philly (which I'm not sure he does), he would have to accept somewhere in the area of $4 million per season.

He may squeeze the Birds for a bit more than that, but he's not going to even get a second look if the Eagles are told he's seriously looking for anywhere near $8 million per season.

Sean McDermott needs a good free safety to plug into his scheme, but Andy Reid and company will sit and take one with their first round pick before they overpay a free agent.

Rolle is going to have to accept that he's not in the same company as guys like Polamalu or Reed, so he's not going to get paid like them—at least not on a winning team. Even the owners known for spending—Al Davis, Jerry Jones, and Danny Snyder—may not be willing to pay him what he's asking.

Not only that, but the Raiders seem hellbent on giving Michael Huff every opportunity to pan out, the Cowboys appear happy with their safeties, and word is that Snyder is only signing the checks now with Mike Shanahan in town.

Rolle and his agent could just be leaking a high price to create a phantom bidding war amongst teams. If one team believes that another has actually offered him near his asking price, it could create someone else to jack up their offer.

But either way, the chances of Rolle coming to Philly seem to have dropped significantly. If there ever was a real chance of the Birds seriously considering Rolle, it may have ended with the leaking of his asking price.