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Are Karlos Dansby and Antrel Rolle running out of town? (AP Photo/John Russell)

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The NFL's free agency period is officially underway and for the Arizona Cardinals, they're hoping that their two big fish don't land deals too quickly. Karlos Dansby is reportedly in Miami talking to the Dolphins and Antrel Rolle, who has already received a contract offer from the Dolphins, is looking to break the bank with a contract that will pay him about eight million per season (which would make him the highest paid safety in the league). Both Rolle and Dansby are also expected to draw interest from the Giants but no one has ruled out a return to the Cardinals either. Right now the best we can do is sit back and hope that neither player is blown away by a massive contract.

As for the rest of free agency, not concerning the Cardinals, there has already been some movement. The Chargers traded Antonio Cromartie to the Jets for a third round pick in 2011 and they also cut veteran nose tackle Jamal Williams. Williams will certainly be a target for any 3-4 defense looking for a traditional space eating nose tackle. The Lions have been awfully busing so far, signing Nate Burleson to a five year deal (25 million with 11 million in guarantees), supposedly on the verge of trading for defensive tackle Corey Williams from Cleveland and also making a solid push for former Cardinal and current Titan Kyle Vanden Bosch. The Panthers also made a bold move cutting quarterback Jake Delhomme despite still owing him $12.5 million in guaranteed money.

Use this thread for all free agent chatter and we'll update is periodically with news and/or various rumors.

More photos » Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Arizona Cardinals safety Antrel Rolle was voted to his first Pro Bowl this season but is he on the verge of being cut? (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

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We all know the Arizona Cardinals have some major personel decisions to make in the upcoming months regarding free agency, the draft and several "special" contract issues with players such as Antrel Rolle, Anquan Boldin and Darnell Dockett. While Boldin and Dockett simply want new contracts, Rolle's situation is a bit more complicated. Due to escalators in his rookie contract, commonplace for the Cardinals (just think Larry Fitzgerald from a couple years ago), Rolle is on the verge of earning a four million dollar roster bonus, plus his base salary this season would be just north of eight million. Needless to say that's just about enough to tank any teams budget but the two sides have been in talks on some kind of resolution (ie a new contract) for some time, as Andrew noted last week, but it appears as though something may have changed. Darren Urban, the team's official web master, recently wrote about the situation and this line seems to sum up the matter rather concisely:

I expect him to be released into the open market.

While that line might not mean much if I or Andrew were to write it, at least in my mind it means something coming from Urban. Urban isn't in the business of pure speculation or spreading unfounded rumors, after all he is an employee of the team. So what does this mean for Rolle and the Cardinals?

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Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for winning Super Bowl 44. They did something the Cardinals weren't able to do last year, which was knocking off the favorites to win the game. I'll assume that the game wasn't as stressful for the fans as the last two years have been, especially when Tracy Porter picked off one of Peyton Manning's passes in the fourth quarter and returned the ball 74-yards to put the final nail in the coffin. Click on the image for a full set of pictures from the Super Bowl. The Saints did it, and now they're the Super Bowl champs.

On Tuesday, Miami Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter was a guest on a miami sports radio station and expressed his thoughts on his future with the Dolphins. He's ready to leave, and the Arizona Cardinals could be a possible landing spot.

Porter stated that the last ten games of the season for him were "miserable", and that he didn't think returning to the team next year was an option.

Porter was essentially benched week ten for a team violation, and his playing time was greatly diminished for the remainder of the year. Porter stated how he felt on the matter:

"I'll never let them take the fire out of me," Porter said. "But they did that." 

During the interview Porter also stated that he had interest in playing on the west coast, for a 3-4 defense, and for either the Chargers, 49ers, or Cardinals. Of those three teams, the Cardinals are the most in need of a linebacker with Bertrand Berry retiring less then two weeks ago, and the contract situations with Chike Okeafor and Karlos Dansby.

Here's what we know so far. Porter will be 33 in March and his best days are certainly behind him. That's not to say he doesn't have any gas left - he registered 9 sacks last year and 17.5 the year before. His current contract with the Dolphins has two years remaining worth $8 million, meaning the Dolphins would need to either trade or release him.

Since the Cardinals were one of the final eight teams of the playoffs, their limited to signing one unrestricted free agent to a $5 million per year deal, or several unrestricted free agents to $3.7 million per year deals. The likely scenario would be to sign Porter to a two year contract at the most, but within the restrictions stated above. What are your thoughts on the situation? Does Porter have enough gas left to shore up the Cardinals need at linebacker for the time being?

After twelve long NFL seasons, 38 year old Kurt Warner hung up the cleats on Friday afternoon.

In an official press conference with the team, Warner announced that his time in the NFL was over and the story book career he had experienced had ended. It may not be a happy ending - not like winning the Super Bowl would've been last year - but nonetheless, he did something that no one else had done in Arizona in decades - make them a winner.

We all know his story - Warner started his career stocking groceries, which then turned into a journey through the Arena Football League and NFL Europe, only to wind up with the St. Louis Rams. Trent Green suffers a season ending knee injury early in the year and Kurt Warner takes over. He leads the Rams on a turnaround season, wins the MVP, and oh yeah, the Super Bowl. In 2001 Warner won his second MVP and also returned to the Super Bowl only to fall short.

After injuries and fumble problems, Warner was cut and served a brief stint in New York before being benched to Eli Manning.

In 2005 Warner became a member of the Arizona Cardinals and was primarily signed to compete for a starting job. He beat out Matt Leinart in 2007 and never looked back. Warner turned the Cardinals into one of the top offenses in the league the last three seasons, helped the Cardinals clinch back to back NFC West titles, and also propelled the team to their first Super Bowl appearance in 2008.

He'll always be remembered for turning around two of the worst franchises in the league and leading them to the glory land. We all owe a great due of respect and thanks to Warner for everything he has done. He's been a great athlete on the field and a great man outside of football. Now he can take this time to relax, spend more time with his family, and prepare his speech for Canton.

The million dollar question facing the Arizona Cardinals might be answered sooner than orginally thought. Reports are surfacing that Kurt Warner will hold a press conference on Friday at the team's facilities and the rumor is that he's expected to announce his retirement at that time. Now before anyone jumps to conclusions here, none of this has been officially confirmed. In fact Darren Urban, the team's website guru, hasn't even been able to confirm that they are holding a press conference. Right now all of this is being driven by the dreaded "source with knowledge of the situation."

That hasn't stopped both NFL.com and ESPN from running with the story and it certainly wouldn't be shocking if it all turned out to be true, but for now nothing is confirmed. One of the reasons that ESPN believes he'll announce his retirement is that he's supposedly started gathering his family for the press conference and they also cite that he has several promotional appearances next week at the Super Bowl and he'd rather not have the focus of every conversation on his undecided future. Either way we should find out in a couple of days.

Update #1: Kent Somers is reporting that Warner's agent has confirmed that a press conference will "probably" be held, whatever that means.

Update #2: Clark Judge quoted a league source saying, "My understanding," he said, "is that he could go in either direction." I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Update #3: Kurt Warner confirmed the press conference via twitter,

"The Arizona Cardinals and I will be holding a press conference on Friday, January 29, 2010. I have made a final decision on my retirement."

Update #4: Rotoworld is making it sound like a done deal already,

Warner is fully expected to announce his retirement from football on Friday. The Cardinals will turn the offense over to Matt Leinart, whose salary increases from $2.5M in 2010 to $7.4M in 2011 with a $5.5M roster bonus. Leinart will have one year to prove he can handle the job for the leading NFC West contender.

Update #5: Darren Urban has more details below. The decision comes Friday.

The Cardinals (and Kurt Warner) have finally made it official -  the press conference will be at 1 p.m. Arizona time Friday here at the team's Tempe facility.

Arizona Cardinals' starting free safety Antrel Rolle, has been named to the NFL Pro Bowl next week. The move was made after starting safety Darren Sharper, was forced to pull out with his obvious attendance in the following week's Super Bowl match up with the Indianapolis Colts.

The trip to Miami will be Rolle's first career Pro Bowl appearance and it certainly proves that the former first round pick has come a long way since struggling with his original position at cornerback.

Rolle was the fifth Cardinal selected to the Pro Bowl, but will only be the second player in attendence after Larry Fitzgerald, Adrian Wilson, and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie all pulled out with different reasons. The only other Cardinal to attend with be defensive tackle Darnell Dockett.

Antrel ended 2009 with 71 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and 4 interceptions. Congratulations to Antrel Rolle who will be representing the Arizona Cardinals next week and makes watching the game a little bit more worth while.

Drew Brees will obviously not play, and if Brett Favre doesn't attend either, we may see Kurt Warner Pro Bowl bound as well. Tony Romo was added to the pro bowl in place of Favre. Looks like we won't see Warner again this year after all.

Yesterday Bertrand Berry announced his retirement from the NFL. The 34 year old DE/OLB was a third round pick in 1997 and has played for Colts, Broncos and our very own Arizona Cardinals. During his twelve year career he's appeared in 160 games, recording 232 tackles, 65 sacks, 17 passes defended and 13 forced fumbles and he retires as one of the Arizona Cardinals best free agent acquisitions of all time. He led the team, and the NFC, with 14.5 sacks in his first year as a Cardinal, 2004, and that sack total ranked third all time in the team's single season record books. He'd also lead the team in sacks in 2008 and if you add in post season stats, he also led the team in sacks this past season. His 40 career sacks, regular season totals only, as a Cardinal ranks sixth all-time on the team's leader board and he's also been quite an ambassador for the game off the field. His charity, Bertrand Berry foundation, offers children a better life experience by raising funds to benefit two non-profits: Childhelp and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The man affectionately known as B-Train has also hosted a weekly radio show, Big Red Rage, for several years and he delivered his retirement news on last night's final installment of the show. Here's a look at B-Train's five best games as a member of the Arizona Cardinals:

• #5 - 10/12/08 - (1 tackle, 1 sack and 1 forced fumble) - Statistically speaking this wasn't one of Berry's memorable games but he was one of the Cardinals defenders who practically lived the Cowboys' backfield. He mercifully pressured Tony Romo and his "poster-izing" sack of Romo was one of the most memorable moments of the entire season.
  
• #4 - 1/2/05 - (2 tackles, 2 sacks and 1 pass defended) - This was a very "Bertrand Berry" type of game in that he effected the game in only one aspect but his contributions might have been the difference in the outcome. His only two tackles of the game, both of which were sacks, came on third downs which forced the Bucanneers into punting situations. The Cards would win the game 12-7
  
• #3 - 1/10/10 - (2 tackles, 2 sacks) - It seems weird to say one of Berry's best games was a game when the defense was torched for 45 points but Berry's two sacks were one of the only things that slowed down Aaron Rodgers on this day. His first sack forced the Packers into their only punt of the entire game.
  
• #2 - 10/22/06 - (5 tackles, three sacks, two forced fumbles and one pass defended) - While Berry's performance in this game couldn't propel the Cardinals to a win, his three sacks and two forced fumbles were about the only thing that kept this game close. Both of his forced fumbles were recovered by the Cardinals and the offense converted both turnovers into field goals, totaling six of their nine points.
  
• #1 - 11/14/04 - (7 tackles, four sacks) - Berry's best game as a member of the Arizona Cardinals came in his very first season wearing red and it might just go down as one of the defining moments of this decade. Not only did Berry record four sacks, his game high as a Cardinal, he also effectively ended Kurt Warner's short tenure with the New York Giants. The Giants entered the game 5-3 but the team's fourth loss sent Warner to the bench for the remainder of the season and we all know the rest of the story.

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