Roquan Smith’s holdout is the worst kind of contract impasse — it’s boring.
Oh, for the days when contract holdouts were inherently acrimonious and antagonistic — with the player sitting at home while his teammates sweated on the practice field in training camp, the agent and general manager trading threats, the player demanding to be traded, fines piling up and the head coach trying to straddle the line between supporting his player and being loyal to the organization, while masking his irritation at the two sides making his job that much more difficult.
When Steve McMichael held out in 1990, he actually gave in and accepted the Bears $775,000 offer a couple of days into camp, but by then the Bears had pulled the offer off the table — extending the holdout another month.