Shortly before the Cardinals' Sunday night loss to the Seahawks, ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio reported on NBC that Arizona had no plans to release wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald after the season.
Fitzgerald's future in Arizona has been the subject of great speculation due to his exorbitant $23.6 million salary cap figure in 2015. Florio reported that Fitzgerald could be traded, or may be open to restructure his deal or negotiate an extension.
On Monday, Cardinals general manager Steve Keim addressed the report during an interview on KMVP-FM in Arizona.
"We have to make good business decisions," Keim said, via the Cardinals' home site. "I don't think it's any secret that we said all along that it is our intent to have Larry Fitzgerald retire a Cardinal. I don't want to get into it too deep, but with planning purposes and financially, from a cap standpoint and all those sort of things, we have Larry's (cap) number already baked into our numbers.
"Now, any kind of business decisions moving forward, renegotiations with Larry and that sort of thing, we've had ongoing talks with (agent) Eugene Parker and we will continue to have ongoing talks. But again, the best I can tell you is that it is our intent to keep Larry and make sure he stays a Cardinal the rest of his career."
Fitzgerald is the face of the Cardinals and probably the most popular player in franchise history. This adds more nuance to an important business decision for Arizona. Most importantly, the 31-year-old Fitzgerald can still play, and his presence in the starting lineup makes the Cardinals a better team.
Fitzgerald is overpaid at this stage of his career, but consider it a surprise if he's not playing in the desert in 2015.
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