With the CBA set to expire on Friday (just a day away), there is little a team can do in the way of personnel moves. They can renegotiate with and re-sign their own players, they can release players and they can sign players that have been released by other teams. Word has come and gone about the Arizona Cardinals releasing players, they have been in contract negotiations with Larry Fitzgerald, but they have not as of yet been interested in any recently released players, even though there may be a few that would be worth a look.
One such player who was recently released was Green Bay Packer linebacker A.J. Hawk. He was due to make $10 million this next season, so he was released because the Packers did not want to pay him that much.
While there is some question to whether or not Hawk is an elite inside linebacker, he would have been most certainly an upgrade in talent for the linebacking corp. The Cardinals have lots of salary cap space, so getting out there and attempting to sign Hawk before midnight Thursday night would have been a possibility.
That all changed when news got out that AJ Hawk was going to re-sign with the Packers to a five-year deal reportedly, less than 24 hours after being released.
So much for the Cardinals making a move to acquire him. He would have been a nice addition to the team. His tenacity and energy to the ball would be a great quality to mix with the speed and youth of Daryl Washington, O'Brien Schofield and Will Davis.
And so it is that another day passes and the Cardinals make no actual moves, leaving us to ponder, speculate and project what will actually happen.The thing is that if Friday rolls around and no CBA is set, then we will have a lot of nothing to discuss.
At least we have 2008-2009.