McKenzie ends holdout

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

 

By Len Pasquarelli

ESPN.com

 

 

Holdout cornerback Mike McKenzie, who has missed all of training camp, the preseason and Monday night's regular-season opener in a contract dispute, is expected to report to the Green Bay Packers on Wednesday, ESPN.com has learned.

 

 

McKenzie

 

The fifth-year veteran was en route to Green Bay late Tuesday afternoon. He and agent Drew Rosenhaus spoke earlier in the day with team officials, apprised the Packers that McKenzie was set to come back to work, but also emphasized that McKenzie still wants to be traded.

 

McKenzie will meet Wednesday morning with team officials and, if all goes well, he could rejoin the Packers for practice in the afternoon. But operating on the old adage that the easiest way to get a new job is to have an old job, McKenzie hopes the end to his lengthy work stoppage eventually gets him a new address.

 

"The top priority for Mike remains a trade," Rosenhaus said during a short stopover in Cincinnati, "and maybe him coming in will precipitate something. Sometimes, you have to change the strategy, to try something new. And, clearly, there was a financial factor at work here as well. Let's hope teams see that Mike is back at work and perhaps become a little more motivated to try to acquire him."

 

Rosenhaus said there was no connection between McKenzie ending his boycott and the fact Green Bay's defense turned in a stellar performance, including in the secondary, in Monday night's dominant 24-14 road victory over Carolina. Veteran backup Michael Hawthorne, starting in place of McKenzie at left cornerback, turned in a very nice performance, and first-rounder Ahmad Carroll also played well in the nickel and dime packages.

 

Hawthorne, mostly matched up against Panthers veteran Muhsin Muhammad, registered two tackles and two passes defensed. Carroll also had a pair of pass deflections. In all, Green Bay's defense played the pass well and the front seven certainly aided the secondary by blitzing Carolina quarterback Jake Delhomme all night.

 

"If anything, Mike was excited that the guys played that well," Rosenhaus said. "He has a lot of friends on the team and wants the Packers to succeed. But he still wants a trade. That said, he intends to play hard, as he always has for the Packers."

 

Green Bay officials reiterated to ESPN.com on Monday night that there was no intention at present to deal McKenzie and that his contract will not be modified. Things have been quiet on the trade front, although at least one club, New Orleans, has maintained dialogue with the Packers throughout McKenzie's holdout. Green Bay was said to be asking for a first-round draft pick and a middle-rounder as well to consider a deal.

 

While the Packers have never confirmed that price tag, team officials have said no other team has come close to offering a package that would sway them.

 

McKenzie, 28, has three seasons remaining on the five-year, $17 million contract extension he signed late in the 2001 season, when he was on the cusp of restricted free agency. The former University of Memphis player apparently believes that, with some of the huge deals signed by cornerbacks in free agency this spring, his contract is now obsolete.

 

He is due base salaries of $2.75 million this season, then $3.43 million in 2005 and $4.1 million in 2006. McKenzie forfeited one-seventeenth of his 2004 base salary, $161,764, by missing Monday night's game. It is believed that McKenzie was being fined $5,000 per day missed in camp, the maximum permitted by the collective bargaining agreement.

 

Rosenhaus, who is McKenzie's fifth agent since the cornerback entered the NFL as a third-round pick in 1999, as recently as Friday has said no resolution to his client's holdout was imminent. McKenzie has not spoken at all to reporters during his absence, and spent his time at home in Memphis, taking summer classes at his alma mater there and working with a personal trainer.

 

In five seasons, McKenzie has started 67 of 69 appearances, posting 286 tackles, 15 interceptions and 70 passes defensed. The Packers could have him re-join the team and ask the league for a two-week roster exemption, standard in such cases, to assess his conditioning.

 

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/stor..._len&id=1881614

[starvenger 0]

Vikings fans should be concerned about the Eagles first...

[Guest Vitamin X]

I'd laugh if McKenzie fails his physical with the Packers.

 

This holdout seriously will destroy what could have been a Pro Bowl career.

[packwingfn 0]

I dont know if the Packers should really take him back or not. First of all, Hes gonna be out of shape, and second, his attitude could ruin the flow of the team if he isn't focused and may not play his best.

 

Also Rookie Ahmed Carroll and Michael Hawthorne didnt play that bad of a game besides that mishap on the last Carolina Touchdown. OUCH.

[Slayer 0]

I love how you emphasize the fact how this is bad for the Vikings rather than good for the Packers, Kahren

[Guest Flyboy]

Damnit. I was hoping the Saints could trade for him.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I love how you emphasize the fact how this is bad for the Vikings rather than good for the Packers, Kahren

Honestly, I just put that to get your attention specifically. Now that I've done that, I can edit it.

[Slayer 0]

Well I'm certainly flattered that I was the first thing you thought of

 

More people should be like you

 

...minus the cheeseheadedness

[Guest Vitamin X]

As if I needed to be given more reason as to why Brett Favre is one of the best players to lead by example, not just by his play but by his leadership.

 

Packers quarterback Brett Favre has been the most outspoken critic of McKenzie's holdout. In June, Favre said, "I like Mike. I think he's a great player, we all think so. But I really feel like in this situation he's wrong. There's quarterbacks out there who make more money than me. Whenever the peak of my career was - I think it's right now - there were guys making more money than me. ... Maybe I was just naive and didn't really give a damn, but it never really concerned me. All I cared about was playing football."

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Favre is absolutely correct, of course. But if it improves Green Bay's chance of going to the Super Bowl, I will put up with McKenzie.

[Guest GreatOne]

This might not be that good of a deal. Holmgren's first year in Seattle had the Hawks 7-2 or 8-2 without Joey Galloway. All the sudden the offense was based around him when he came back and it totally went to hell, plus it pretty much wrote Kitna's ticket out of Seattle right then.

 

Worst thing a would-be championship team can do is have guys that don't wanna be there--we already had Adams and Daniels that were more or less looking for big FA deals elsewhere.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Feeling no need to tell the Chicago Bears anything they don't need to know, the Packers likely will not make a decision about cornerback Mike McKenzie's availability until Saturday, at the earliest.

 

McKenzie, who skipped the minicamps, training camp, the preseason and then the first regular-season game, reported for action Wednesday. While supposedly in great shape, keeping yourself in great shape is a far cry from being ready to cover opposing wide receivers. And running to keep in shape is about as different as can be from lining up in full pads and tackling someone.

 

"That's probably one of the things we worry about most, is the contact part of the game and the tackling part," defensive coordinator Bob Slowik said.

 

 

For now, Slowik said, Michael Hawthorne will remain the starting left cornerback. After a ragged preseason, Hawthorne generally had a good night against the Panthers.

 

"Mike Hawthorne played as good of game as we had in the secondary on Monday night," Slowik said. "So, it's not like, all of a sudden, Mike McKenzie is just automatically going to take over that role. He's going to have to earn that position, through practice or his performance in the game when he gets in there."

 

McKenzie got some work in the Packers' dime defensive package Thursday.

 

It also astounds me how McKenzie became so arrogant so quickly that he thinks he should just be handed the starting job so quickly when he came back. He forgets- when he was drafted in 1999, he was the last of the 3 cornerbacks taken in that draft, after Antuan Edwards and Fred Vinson (who I'm not sure is even in the NFL anymore after a ton of injury problems in Seattle...who by the way was one of the players Seattle brought in in the Ahman Green trade. Think it worked out good for Green Bay?). He worked his ass off to get to the position he was in and worst off they gave him a nice fat contract, and all of a sudden he wants more money. Fucking primadonna.

 

I predict he probably won't start for another month or so, unless he throws a fit again (this time about not starting), and he probably won't play well or get injured for the rest of the season. If he's still asking to be traded after that, he'd be a lunatic.

 

And to think this guy almost ended Philly's season last year in the playoffs (he had a near-interception near the end of the 4th quarter which would have prevented 4th-and-26..which would have been great since both games in the playoffs would have been decided by int's for td's..)