Larry Fitzgerald might have taken his last snap with the Arizona Cardinals after their NFC Wild Card Game loss to the Carolina Panthers on Saturday.
The Cardinals likely will ask the veteran wide receiver to take a pay cut from his $15 million salary in 2015, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport reported Sunday. Fitzgerald is signed through 2018 but will cost the team $23.6 million against the cap next season.
“I’m told the ball is in his court, as far as how much he wants to accept and how willing he is to help their salary-cap situation,” Rapoport said, via NFL.com.
Fitzgerald already restructured his contract this past offseason to save the Cardinals from taking an $18 million cap hit. But it remains to be seen how much Fitzgerald is willing to give up to stay with Arizona and how much the team is willing to shell out to keep the eight-time Pro Bowler, who will be 32 next season.
Despite all the chatter that’s surrounded Fitzgerald’s future with the Cardinals year after year, general manager Steve Keim told Arizona Sports 98.7 FM last week that the team intends to do all it can to keep their wide receiver.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that we’ve said all along it’s our intent to have Larry Fitzgerald retire a Cardinal,” Keim said, via FOX Sports. “I don’t want to get into it too deep, but with planning purposes, financially, from a cap standpoint, all those sorts of things, we have Larry’s number already baked into our numbers.
“We’ve had ongoing talks with (Fitzgerald’s agent) Eugene Parker, and we will continue to have ongoing talks. Even though it’s still not 2015, it’s my job to look at 2015, ’16, ’17 and years beyond, and we have to make good business decisions.”
Thumbnail photo via Matt Kartozian/USA TODAY Sports Images
