GREEN BAY — Atari Bigby had hopes of landing a long-term contract extension this offseason.
It didn’t happen, which begs the following question: Did the Green Bay Packers safety accomplish anything by staying away during the team’s offseason program?
“As far as getting a contract, no,” Bigby admitted Saturday after the Packers’ first practice of training camp, one that he wasn’t able to participate in because of an ankle injury that dates to the 2008 preseason.
“But I definitely gained wisdom. It was definitely a learning experience for me. I probably won’t be able to use it, but I know the guys coming after me, I’ll be able to give them advice on how it went for me.”
Bigby, a restricted free agent who didn’t sign his one-year contract offer until a few days before training camp, said it was “extremely, extremely disappointing” not to land a multi-year deal that would have offered greater security. He said his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, and the team had discussions, but those talks clearly didn’t make enough headway.
Bigby normally would have been an unrestricted free agent with presumably greater options, but was classified in restricted status because of the absence of a collective bargaining agreement between the league’s owners and the players association.
Instead, he received an offer at the second-round level of $1.759 but didn’t sign before June 15, when the Packers could have reduced their offer to 110 percent of his 2009 salary (though the difference in money wasn’t great). Bigby said he never was informed that Green Bay had opted to do that.
“I wasn’t really too focused on the dollar amount,” Bigby said. “I just wanted to know that this was going to be a home for me. That’s all it was about. And in a normal situation, I would have been a free agent, an unrestricted free agent. And because of whatever’s going on with the league, (it) put me in an unusual situation.”
Even so, Bigby said a training camp holdout was never part of his plan.
“My goal was to be, the start of the season, to be here on time with everybody else,” he said. “I felt like I took it as long as I could. I took it right up to the wire. And holding out during training camp wasn’t something that I wanted to do.”
Now, he’d just like to get on the field.
Bigby said even after undergoing surgery in 2008, the ankle problem bothered him last year, but he played through it and it wasn’t a problem in the offseason. But it flared up during the team’s conditioning test on Friday and prevented him from passing his physical.
“There are some tests that will be done,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. “We don’t have all of the answers right now, and that will probably go into next week, to be honest.”
Bigby, who said the last time he felt totally healthy was before he sustained the ankle injury in the 2008 preseason, is rehabbing and was unsure whether he would need surgery.
“I don’t know at this point,” he said. “We’re still getting scans done, we’re still in that process. So after we gather all that information, I’ll have a better understanding.”
With Bigby unvailable on Saturday, rookie third-round pick Morgan Burnett again worked with the starting defense, just as he did all offseason in Bigby’s stead. Bigby said he still views himself as the starter, and he didn’t think the Packers’ coaching staff would hold his offseason-long no-show against him when he’s ready to practice.
“Apart from playing football, you have to feed your family,” he said. “When you go to work, you negotiate your contracts, too. You negotiate your salary too, just like everybody else. It’s nothing personal. I’m not saying anything bad about the Packers. I still love the Packers. This is my team. But of course I’m going to try to get what I feel like I deserve.”
First off Snake is one of the few...a Bigby supporter over the years, but with his innane decision to hold out for cash with a stud like Burnett sniffing for his job, and then deciding to not treat his injured ankle....well I dunno. Doesn't sound good for Bigby. I love the big hits, and his INT's at times, but this sounds bad for him.
I know that it obviously takes several million to feed your family. That quote worked out well for Latrell Sprewell.
