Arizona Cardinals options on draft day

There are only so many days till the draft, we are counting the moments between now and the fateful day that the Arizona Cardinals make a selection in the draft and inch closer to a possible Super Bowl. With the days dwindling down, we get closer to the possibilities, and trust me, there are many options in the draft.

I want to show you so many options, with draft day trades, maybe incredible selections never expected, and the amazing screams from the fans. This is going to be very interesting in my opinion, I get the chance to mix and match the baggies of goodies, so enjoy the imagination of a Cardinals writer.

So, what you can notice from the above picture is a possibility that many Cardinals fans would drool over, and the applause would reign over us. Before you get all jumpy, some very interesting things have to have happen before it really became official. The Cardinals cannot go under the cap, so some cap maneuvering would need to happen.

Muhammad Wilkerson is worth a pretty penny, according to Spotrac.com, it’s the penny of $15,701,000, so how do we accommodate? According to overthecap.com, the Cardinals have a salary cap of $153,622,426, which is only $2,291,734 below the hard cap. That means the Cardinals would have to clear up salary cap either way, the NFL Draft takes up to $5M, that’s a lot more then we have left.

Step 1: The pending release of Cory Redding (worth $3M  cap savings+ $1M dead money, according to overthecap.com), Alex Okafor (worth $1.671M cap savings + $118,607 dead money, according to overthecap.com), Kevin Minter (worth 1,033,677 cap savings + 393,236 dead money, according to overthecap.com), Frostee Rucker (worth $1,353,125 cap savings + $0M dead money, according to overthecap.com), and Andre Ellington (worth $1.671M cap savings + $25,966 dead money, according to overthecap.com).

This is some extra wiggle room, looking at around $144,893,624, and we are roughly under by $10M-$11M. Pretty good, right? Not out of the woods yet. We need to open up roughly $7M, so the next part is going to be so mad that Cardinals fans are going to scream at their monitors, sorry guys, let’s play pretend for now, yell later.

Step 2: Trade away a piece, someone worth $7,320,000, so I’ll mention it on the next slide. The trade would put the Cardinals at $137,573,624, which gives the Cardinals enough space to handle Mo and also worry about the impending draft picks.

Step 3: Give up a first round selection, the 29th overall selection, to the New York Jets. Why does this work for the Jets? Because the Jets need extra ammunition and extra cap space. To think that the Cleveland Browns are going to take on the contract of Mo would be flat out weird, especially after not investing much in free agency.

So the Jets get the move up to take a quarterback they desperately need (Jared Goff or Carson Wentz, Los Angeles Rams leftovers), and the Browns get two first rounders (20th and 29th) this year, two second rounders (51st and next years), and a third (83rd). That’s a lot of ammunition to rebuild. So what does this mean for the Cardinals? The aforementioned news that would rip the NFC to shreds. Now to some sad news.

Next: Goodbye to a valued piece