Very Bad News: Arizona Cardinals head coach angry and announced resignation immediately…
The Arizona Cardinals are going to be very involved in churning the roster this offseason from the NFL Draft through free agency following a 4-13 mark in 2023.
Translation: There’s going to be quite a bit of money spent by general manager Monti Ossenfort. At the end of the day, you have to pay to play.
A look at Arizona’s salary cap situation and where some added wiggle room can be made.
And depending on where you look, Arizona’s cap-space situation can look a little different.
Per OverTheCap, the Cardinals have $42,183,130 in space 10th highest in the league. Head to Spotrac and that number shifts to $41,184,440, 11th in the NFL.
Even factoring in effective cap space — the cap space a team has left over after signing its draft class and at least 51 players — the Cardinals are projected to have $30,989,080, which OverTheCap ranks as 11th most in the league.
The Cardinals do, however, sport the third most dead money in the league at $14,151,584. Much of that can be credited to the money still owed to tight end Zach Ertz ($5 million), defensive lineman J.J. Watt ($4.8 million) and offensive lineman Rodney Hudson ($3.52 million).
There are more than a few ways to manipulate the salary cap if you’re Ossenfort or any of the other 32 NFL GMs.
But one of the only ways teams can open up both cap space and roster spots is through releases.
For the Cardinals, three realistic cuts come to mind that would end up giving Arizona more money to work with this offseason.
The first is starting left tackle D.J. Humphries.
After already coming into the year viewed as a potential cut candidate because of the savings the team could yield given the non-guaranteed years left on his deal, a torn ACL toward the end of this past season and the rehab that comes with it only made the lineman that much more disposable.
Carrying a cap hit of $22.8 million, releasing Humphries with a post-June 1 designation would bring on $13.8 million in dead money but free up a little more than $9 million in cap space.
There could be an injury protection benefit attached to the release, as Kyle Odegard alluded to earlier this month, though it shouldn’t be a substantial number.
The post-June 1 designation would also allow the Cardinals to spread out the dead money hit over two seasons rather than taking the full $13.8 million in 2024 with a pre-June 1 designation.
The next name that could free up cap space by way of a release is offensive lineman Dennis Daley.
The veteran went from a potential starting option at guard to near-afterthought, appearing in just three games for the Cardinals last season.
With a release of Daley, the Cardinals could free up another $1.6 million. Seems like a logical move to make to get a little more wiggle room.
