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Eugene Parker is a Genius
by Sam Monson
15/3/2008
 You might think you know the NFL, know who’s who, and be familiar with all the names you should know, but I’m betting you have no idea who Eugene Parker is. Parker has been named by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the 50 most influential black men in sports, and number 45 in Sports Illustrated’s list of the top 101 most influential minorities in sports. He just made one of the best moves in football this year, and it’s likely to earn him only around $900k for the next three years.
That’s because Eugene Parker is a player agent, and that $900k is his 3% of the contract he just negotiated for star receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, who re-signed with the Arizona Cardinals, Tuesday March 11, for 4 years, $40m, with $30m guaranteed.
The Arizona Cardinals mismanaged this situation from the outset, and allowed Parker to hold all the cards in this multi-million dollar game of poker. After tearing up the league in his first four seasons, Larry Fitzgerald hit all kinds of incentives in his original rookie deal, bumping his 2008 base salary up to $14.6 million, and his 2009 base salary to a whopping $17.4 million. The Cardinals were forced tight against the league’s salary cap, and have been locked in negotiations with Fitzgerald’s agent for the past several months.
This lack of cap room has caused the Cardinals to miss out on all of the big Free Agent names, including being unable to re-sign their own, as Calvin Pace left for the Jets after they offered big money, but the priority for them was to lock Larry Fitzgerald down long-term.
Tuesday saw the break in the stalemate, and it turns out Parker’s hand of 4 Aces was more than good enough to win. Parker got Fitzgerald a deal to top the one signed by Randy Moss in New England. Eugene Parker deserves a medal, or knighting, or an ice-cream cone, or something! The deal enables the Cardinals to cut $8.842m off Fitzgerald’s cap number for 2008, giving them some much needed breathing space against the salary cap. This freed up cap space should allow the Cardinals to make a couple of low-key moves during the rest of free agency, and also to have the room necessary to sign their draft picks later in the year. Before this cap room was freed up, the Cardinals had just 48 players on their roster, and just 16 defenders. It is difficult to overstate how badly the Cardinals needed the deal to be done, and that was the key to the eventual outcome.
 Fitzgerald and his agent had all the bargaining power in the negotiation, they knew that the Cardinals were desperate to get a deal done, and they also knew that with two years remaining on his contract, and scheduled to earn monster money over those years, Fitzgerald was in no rush to sign anything new. In fact, the money he was scheduled to earn over the next two years – $32m – set the asking price for any new contract he was going to sign. Fitzgerald had the Cardinals over a barrel.
But here’s the best part: Parker not only got his client a big money deal Fitzgerald is paid a $15m signing bonus immediately, as well as a $2m base salary for 2008, and he will earn $33m over the first three years of the contract but he got him a four year deal!
Larry Fitzgerald is going to hit Free Agency again in 4 years time, at the age of 28! In the prime of his career, having already signed a blockbuster contract, Larry Fitzgerald is going to have the chance to let Parker go to work for him again, and who knows what money the big free agents will command in four years time.
And should the Cardinals try to slap the franchise tag on Fitzgerald? Well Parker also managed to get a clause included in the contract that if the Cardinals do, they have to pay him a massive $23m.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the smartest man in football: Eugene Parker.
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