The Arizona Cardinals were pretty tight with the salary cap during the most recent offseason. A report that listed all the teams and their salary cap situation has the Arizona Cardinals listed as having quite a bit of space heading into the regular season. Pro Football Talk had them being $10 million under the salary cap, which gives would give the team some flexibility.
However, those numbers were a little misleading because they are not the complete regular season numbers.
Before the start of the season, the league looks at the salary cap using the highest 51 cap numbers. The roster is at 53 players now and there are players on that have been placed on injured reserve or other reserve lists. The regular season begins and the cap situation goes to the full 53-man roster plus the ones on reserve lists.
This makes the Cardinals' situation a little more tenuous.
The team has two key players on injured reserve -- offensive linemen Levi Brown and Jeremy Bridges. Brown, show signed a new deal this past offseason, has a cap number of $2.65 million, according to Kent Somers. Bridges, according to sportrac.com, has a salary of $925,000, but a cap number of $1.291 million. Javarris James is also on injured reserve and has a cap hit and salary of $465,000. The final two guys on the roster would include LaRon Byrd at $390,000 and probably Nate Potter, the team's seventh round pick at a cap hit of $404,850.
Assuming those numbers are correct, the actual cap number the Cardinals will be looking at is just under $5 million under the salary cap -- $4,799,150 to be exact.
That isn't a lot and it isn't a dire salary situation, unless injury to a key player occurs. There has been the suggestion that the team might try to extend the contracts of linebacker Daryl Washington and/or running back/kick returner LaRod Stephens-Howling. That could free up some space.
In the end, it isn't much to deal with and there really isn't any player out there that is worth using up the rest of the cap for at this point.
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