BREAKING NEWS: Cardinals Place Al Johnson on IR

Well, maybe Anquan Boldin has something on the Cardinals after all.  Starting center Al Johnson was placed on injured reserve, effectively ending his season.  Apparently Johnson’s knee injury recovery time was going to take a couple of weeks longer so the Cardinals approached him to cut his salary.  In a report filed on azcentral.com, Johnson said he was willing to cut some of his salary, but the Cardinals wanted a whole lot more back from him.  So the Cardinals decided to just place him on IR and promote Pat Ross from the practice squad.  Lyle Sendlein will be the starter now.

If Johnson is waived off of IR at any point during the season, he is eligible to play for anyone else.  It amazes me the Cardinals choose to approach Johnson about reducing his salary.  To me, that tells me they didn’t think of Johnson highly enough in the first place.  I didn’t see the Cardinals approach Matt Leinart last season to reduce his salary due to missed time.

So after all that, now it makes me think maybe Boldin experienced the same thing Johnson did in terms of negotiations.  I realize this is a business and it sounds like Johnson was willing to work with the team, but the team wanted to take everything away.  Now I don’t know the Cardinals side of things and I’m sure their accounts of the ordeal will be vastly different than that of Johnson’s, but now I sense a trend, a disturbing trend.  The timing is interesting as well.  Only one day before the start of the season and this takes place.  Lost in all of this is that the Cardinals also released safety Oliver Celestin today and promoted center/guard Anthony Oakley from the practice squad – all one day before the opener.  Only the Cardinals.  I’m looking forward to hearing their side of things.

Scott Allen

AZScott