Arizona Cardinals: 2021 offensive free agents

The Arizona Cardinals enter the offseason heading into the 2021 season with a number of free agents.  The discussion starts as to who they should re-sign and who they should part with.

Let’s take a look at the offensive free agents.  There are certainly some players on this list many fans would love to part with.

That’s all fine and dandy but then you have to consider who you replacing said player with? Remember, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Receivers

Clearly the Cardinals biggest unknown as of today is Larry Fitzgerald. Should he return or should he retire.

We ran a poll on Twitter and more fans would like to see him return than retire, though most of the camp that says they hope he returns says he should take a paycut. Yours truly is not in the camp.

Why should we care what he is paid? As long as he isn’t hurting chances of signing someone else, then he should get whatever he wants.  He made $11,500,000 in 2020.

The other receiver hitting free agency is Trent Sherfield.  It is hard to envision him returning. He’s a nice story. Kid plays hard but it’s a numbers game and the team does need to upgrade.

Tight Ends

Both Dan Arnold and Darrell Daniels are about to hit the free agent market. Arnold could return. He did have a couple of crucial drops but he also made some huge plays when needed.

Daniels likely walks.  The Cardinals could just end up re-vamping the entire unit though. This one is hard to get a read on so far.

Running backs

Another big question mark here is the return of Kenyan Drake.  He finished with 955-yards rushing in a contract year. He did miss a game due to injury but he also had to fight for plays called on the ground for him.

Kyler Murray had his own number called on the ground a lot but the Cardinals still need a full time guy that can get the ball down the field with ease. Drake made $8.43 million this past season and would not be surprising to see him demand more in the open market.

D.J. Foster seems to keep coming back. He hits the free agency market but his career has been up and down so far. He’s a good special teams player, so we’ll see how the Cardinals go here.

Offensive line

J.R. Sweezy, Kelvin Beachum, Max Garcia, and Marcus Gilbert all hit the free agency market.  The Cardinals should only consider bringing Beachum back here.

Garcia and Gilbert have had injury issues and Sweezy has been largely ineffective since his arrival.  Look for the Cardinals to re-tool their offensive line this offseason.

Quarterbacks

Brett Hundley is likely out. We detailed a discussion on this after the end of the season. He never found his way onto the active gameday roster this past season.

For some reason the Cardinals didn’t like him and only kept him around as emergency.  Even when it seemed dire, the Cardinals opted for Chris Streveler. Now look for the Cardinals to part with both.