MMQB (cont.)

Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin has made it clear he's not happy in Arizona.

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4. I think I used to support a 17-game regular season, in part because I hate the preseason games so much, but no more. Too much injury risk, and the accumulation of aches and pains for players playing a 17th game is just too much to ask. Football is injury roulette.

These are this week's reasons I will not favor an increase in the regular season from 16 to 17 or 18 games: Osi Umenyiora, Jason Taylor, Maurice Jones-Drew. It happens every year. Responsible league people start talking about playing extra games, and the preseason tells us in spades that 16 is enough when players start dropping in games that mean nothing. The NFL can add a 17th game, and it would not be a cheap imitation of the real thing, necessarily. But the injury risk could make a 17th game another phony late-season game for the teams that have clinched playoff berths. I don't like it.

5. I think the Cardinals will treat Anquan Boldin the way the Bengals treated Chad Johnson. Whether he is playing under a just or unjust contract, Boldin will not be traded -- though you can bet Dallas would give the Cards a first-round pick in 2009 for the miserable receiver -- until after this season. As with the Johnson story in Cincinnati, Arizona is concerned with the precedent moving an unhappy player would set, believing it would cause more than one defensive stalwart (like Darnell Docket, who had his contract renegotiated in 2006) to line up at the pay-me-or-trade-me window too.

"I will try to detach myself from the organization as much as possible,'' Boldin told NFL Network the other day. "As long as I'm here, I can't see myself as a happy member of this organization at all, not with this situation being what it is. I don't see it being rectified, either. The relationship with me and the organization is done. I'm here to uphold my contract, that's it."

The problem here, of course, is that the Cardinals signed Larry Fitzgerald to a foolish rookie deal in 2004, causing a ballooning salary to come due in 2008, and they signed him to an extension in the offseason that will pay him $26.7 million in new money in the next two years (assuming a $5 million option bonus is exercised next year). Boldin, meanwhile, is due to earn $5.25 million in the next two years, not including deferred bonus compensation from his re-negotiated contract. The Cardinals set up this mess. Now they've got to deal with it. I feel for Ken Whisenhunt, who didn't make this mess, no matter what Boldin says.

6. I think, speaking of interesting Cardinals tidbits, Arizona has to name Kurt Warner the starting quarterback, and not just because Matt Leinart spit the bit in going 4-of-12 with three picks at Oakland on Saturday night. Whisenhunt entered camp saying it'd be an open competition. Warner and Leinart were fairly even until Saturday night, when Leinart essentially lost the job. But had it been a dead heat, my feeling is Whisenhunt would have gone with Warner. If he had named Leinart, and if Leinart were to struggle in September, Leinart would be booed heavily because the Arizona crowd is already not in a trusting mode with him, and maybe Leinart would have trouble coming back in Arizona from that. Conversely, if Warner struggles, loses and has to be pulled, the fans (and players) will be looking forward to Leinart coming in, to see if he can pull the team out of a funk. I expect Whisenhunt to name Warner the man for the opener at San Francisco on Sept. 7.

7. I think Mike Nolan had no choice but to name O'Sullivan his starting quarterback. He was clearly the best of the three quarterbacks (Smith, Shaun Hill) in camp and in games this summer. Talked to Nolan this weekend, and he's clearly enamored of two things -- Mike Martz as his no-nonsense coordinator and O'Sullivan as his signal-caller. "Thus far,'' Nolan said, "J.T.'s been better than the other two, and there hasn't really been much of a gray area. His play's been better at the position than what we've had at any point in the last three years.'' Sounds like O'Sullivan has a little rope to work with there.

8. I think Merriman's got to get the surgery.

9. I think, if you're looking for a 14th-round tight end bargain in your fantasy draft this week, I'd pick up Seattle rookie John Carlson. He's 6-foot-5, athletic, and the first complete tight end Holmgren's had in Seattle. Look for Hasselbeck to go to him early and often.

10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

a. Baseball as a team game is underrated. The last five men in the batting order of the Rays, with the best record in baseball, on Sunday in Chicago were named Aybar, Zobrist, Riggans, Gross and Bartlett.

b. Don't laugh: Dustin Pedroia's having one of the top 10 seasons of any hitter in baseball.

c. The airlines don't care about us. There's a surprise.

d. Coffeenerdness: Thank you, Caribou Coffee. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Free wireless. Can't beat that.

e. Weekly Dice-K Madness Section: Boston at Baltimore, Tuesday night. Daisuke Matsuzaka, the most maddening pitcher on the planet, is staked to a 2-0 lead entering the bottom of the first. The first two Orioles go single-walk, and he gets out of it. In the second, now up 3-0, Dice-K walks the leadoff batter and gets out of it. Third inning: With two out, the Orioles go single-walk-single-single. Now it's 3-2. Fourth inning: groundout, single, single, walk, strikeout, popout. Ninety pitches through four. He survives. He throws five innings, is saved by the potent offense, ups his league-high walk total to 77 ... and improves to 15-2. Fifteen and two! With games like this in every single start!

f. Maybe Boston on an Indian Summer sunny day is nicer. Or San Diego on a crystal-clear April day. But when it's sunny and warm, downtown Seattle is one of the best cities in the world.

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