Unhappy With Contract, Garcia Hints At Holdout The Rays aren't the only professional sports team in the Bay area with an attendance problem. The Bucs have one as well. Earnest Graham has not attended an offseason workout, and now quarterback Jeff Garcia is strongly suggesting he might stop attending workouts if the Bucs don't meet his request for a contract extension. "There might come a time when I might have to stand up," Garcia said Tuesday from One Buc Place, where the team is holding another round of voluntary workouts this week. "I hate to do that - to jeopardize my teammates - because they're out here and I don't want to let them down in any sort of way. But at some point you just want to see the respect from up top be given." Garcia's comments were the latest volley hurled in a contract tussle with roots extending to the end of last season, when the Bucs were atop the NFC South. For his part in that return to prominence, Garcia has asked the team to rework his contract, which has one year and a $2 million salary remaining. He is believed to be seeking an extension that will bring his total payout for 2008 to roughly $7 million, or the average of NFL starting quarterbacks. He also is hoping to recover the seven-figure incentive he would have earned had the Bucs' decision to rest him down the stretch not kept him from taking 70 percent of the snaps. Negotiations aimed at resolving the issue have taken place, but Garcia said a meeting between his agent and the Bucs scheduled for last Friday was canceled by the team and that he has no idea when or if negotiations will resume. He added that the cancellation has caused him to lose "faith" in the Bucs' desire to resolve the issue. "I've never held out before," Garcia said. "I've never felt like I've been in position or situation to hold out, and I've never really agreed with that sort of approach to things. I don't feel like, as a player, that it's right to my teammates. But there is a business side to this, and that's something that at some point has to be handled, and you want to be appreciated in that sense. "I mean, it does start to play with you mentally. This is a physical game, and you want players to go out and give everything they have and lay their bodies on the line, lay their hearts on the line. Well, we want you to lay something on the line, too. That's really what it comes down to." Graham, who recently told the Tribune his absence from the previous three workouts was not contract related, did not return phone or text messages left for him Tuesday. Garcia, though, might have spoken for Graham when he pointed to his absence and suggested there are other players thinking the same way about their contract situations. "A guy like Earnest Graham, who had such a spectacular year last year, he's stuck on the bottom and he's a guy who, I think we all believe, should be rewarded," Garcia said. Graham has one year remaining on a contract that is slated to pay him $605,000 in 2008. He is believed to be seeking a deal that will bring his salary in line with his status as the team's top tailback as well as with his production, which exceeded 1,000 total yards in 2007. Bucs officials did not respond to a request for comment on Garcia or Graham. Garcia and Graham aren't the only Bucs who want new contracts. Defensive linemen Greg White and Jovan Haye also appear to remain somewhat frustrated with the status of their contracts. White is looking for a long-term deal that would reward him for his eight-sack season last year, and Haye is hoping for a deal better than the one-year, $2.017 million restricted free-agent tender he accepted this week. "It's good enough to get me through," Haye said of his contract. "The staff rewarded me; hopefully I can reward them this season. I'm happy; it's good; it's a good situation I'm in. I'm here." Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune 14 May 2008