The Arizona Cardinals are coming off the most successful season in franchise history. This offseason, they'll face a myriad of personnel decisions which could go far in determining it we witnessed a beginning or an outlier. In addition to the high profile cases of Kurt Warner, Anquan Boldin, and Edgerrin James, the Cardinals also have several other key issues to resolve. Karlos Dansby and Antonio Smith are free agents. The contracts Adrian Wilson and Darnell Dockett should be addressed, and they need to hire three significant coaching holes -- offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach.
The good news for the Cards is that they'll be a vast amount of money under the salary cap, especially if they cut James -- as they are expected to do quite soon. Should that move happen, they'll have over $45 million of cap space. That's easily enough to retain Warner and Dansby.
As for the rest, everything is going to revolve around Boldin. If the Cards can net two or three decent draft choices for him, it may be smarter to trade him and use the money elsewhere. The offense certainly wasn't the problem last season, so they could use the free agent money and draft choices to shore up the defense.
Then again, it's conceivable they spend a chunk of the money to make Boldin happy again, in which case their offense wouldn't look much different than the powerhouse 2008 version.
Personally, I'd trade Boldin and hope for three draft choices while letting Edge walk. Then you have enough money to retain the others and probably sign a solid defensive player. In the draft, you could then draft a running back, wide receiver, some more defensive help, and some offensive line help. Steve Breaston would slide into the WR2 position behind superstar Larry Fitzgerald, and there are plenty of WR3 options. The team wouldn't be as explosive in the passing game, but would become a more well-rounded group.
Regardless of any layperson's opinion, though, it is evident the Cards have difficult choices this offseason. Expectations have now been raised, which means their choices will be more heavily scrutinized than ever before. In other words, welcome to the NFL, Arizona. It's about time.
