Cardinal Sin

March 8th, 2010 | By boadurichard

When the Free Agent clock struck, the action was on. A lot of teams got better and few got worse. One team the clearly got worse was the Arizona Cardinals. We’ve the phrase before, “You get what you pay for”, and the Cardinals paid for nothing in free agency.

Look at who the Cards have lost so far this off-season, Kurt Warner, Anquan Boldin, Karlos Dansby, and Antrel Rolle. All they got in return was Kerry Rhodes and a third round draft pick. Some of these losses couldn’t be avoided, well let me take that back, only one which was Warner. Some, if not all of the other off-season losses could have been avoided. Kurt Warner walked away from a base salary of $4 million dollars, which means that money was available to pay out.

Boldin just signed a four year deal $28 million dollar deal with the Ravens in a sign and trade deal, with the Ravens giving up their third and fourth round picks to get Boldin.

Dansby just signed a five year $43 million dollar deal with $22 million dollar deal making him the highest paid inside linebacker.

Antrel Rolle signed a five year $37 million dollar deal with $15 million dollars guaranteed.

Now you there is no way that Cardinals could have paid all three of the free agents they lost. Scratch that, they could have, but I understand why they may not have wanted to pay all that money to all four of them.

Keep this in mind. The Cardinals 2009 total pay roll was $111,138, 646 it remains to be seen what they do in free agency to replace these players, but if they weren’t going to pay these guys top dollars, then they aren’t going to pay a second rate free agent anymore money than the top flight guys they had.

I feel as if the Cardinals are throwing in the towel on the 2010 season once they realized Warner wasn’t coming back. They’re are many reasons to keep any of these former Cardinals.

Reasons to keep Boldin: 1) Make life easy for Matt Leinhart (2) Keep the double teams off of Larry Fitzgerald (3) He’s earned the money!

Reasons to keep Dansby: 1) Make life easy for Matt Leinhart (2) He’s the best run stopper in the league (3) He’s earned the money!

Reasons to keep Rolle: 1) Who’s going to lead your defense (2) Defensive Playmaker/Special teams ace (3) Wildcat quarterback

The main reason to keep them all is to make life easy for Matt Leinhart. The team has little faith in him already, so they need to make his transition back to being a starter as easy as possible, which means pound the ball(Ken Wisenhunt has the Steelers pedigree to know this) and play great defense. Losing Boldlin is going to make it easy for teams to double team Fitzgerald. If you think that Early Doucet or Steve Breaston are going to be able to fully replace or possibly be more productive than Boldin please show me footage of what the hell you are talking about. Word on the street is that Cards are looking to pick up Dolphins’ Joey Porter to replace Dansby. Porter is older and if he was that good, the Dolphins wouldn’t let him go. They gave up a fourth round pick to acquire Kerry Rhodes in a trade. Yes, the same Kerry Rhodes who didn’t make a big play (pick, forced fumble, or fumble recovery) until Week 12, and of his three picks he grabbed last year two were against the awful Jake Delhomme and the other was against Tampa Bay Buccaneer rookie, Josh Freeman.

The draft is around the corner, trades and free agency moves are still yet to be made, but the Cardnials 2010 outlook isn’t looking too hot. Keep this in mind, the Cardinals 2009 total payroll was $111,138, 646….the Cardinals 2010 payroll ???? Whatever that 2010 payroll is if the Cardinals don’t make the playoffs that 2010 payroll is probably going to be significantly less than 2009 and you can thank Cardinals ownership for getting what they paid for.