Boldin, who is in Africa on a mission, needs to pass a physical before the trade with San Francisco becomes complete.
There were two big moves yesterday involving some high profile wide receivers heading to playoff contending teams. Percy Harvin is headed to Seattle for a first round pick in the upcoming draft in exchange for one year of his services. Anquan Boldin is headed to his recently vanquished Super Bowl opponent, the San Francisco 49ers, in exchange for a sixth round pick in the upcoming draft.
At a glance this deal makes little sense compared to the Harvin/Seahawks deal. Boldin is coming off of a productive season and a Super Bowl win. Harvin is coming off of a season shortened by injury and some controversial conflicts with his head coach. They both have one year remaining on their existing contracts. It feels like Harvin should have been the player on fire sale and Boldin should be the valuable, reliable veteran. Why does Harvin net the Vikings a 1st rounder and Boldin is only worth a sixth round pick? To get the answer you have to go a little deeper.
The most obvious answer is age. Boldin is still a productive NFL wide receiver, but he's currently 32 and has 10 NFL seasons under his belt. That's a lot of mileage for an wide receiver, where losing a step physically can be amplified significantly on the field. By comparison, Harvin is only 24 and has just 4 NFL seasons under his belt. There's no reason to believe he won't go forward and have many productive years ahead of him. Continuing with this point, the trade with the Seahawks is contingent upon Harvin agreeing to a new contract that is expected to be finalized soon. It's highly likely that this new deal will have Harvin spending his upcoming prime years in Seattle. Boldin's deal feels much more like a 1-year "put us over the top" rental.
Secondly, there's the NFL's salary cap to consider. Boldin is due $6 Million and carries a cap figure of $7.531 Million. This is a pretty significant hit, especially given that the salary cap hasn't increased and many teams are struggling to stay under the cap. I'm having some difficulty finding the exact cap figure that Harvin is making for the last season of this deal, but he's in the final year of his 5-year $14.5 Million rookie contract. We'll have to see the final figures of his new contract with Seattle before we can determine exactly how much of a hit Seattle will take for Harvin, but it will probably be significantly lower than the cap hit the 49ers are absorbing with Boldin.
Even with all of these factors considered I still feel like the Seahawks overpaid for Harvin and the Ravens didn't get enough value for Anquan Boldin, but the disparity isn't quite as bad as it might seem.
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