The Cardinals didn't have a lot of salary cap room going into last week, but that has changed with various moves.
They created $6.5 million of cap space when they released Jordan Hicks. The same day it was reported linebacker Devon Kennard restructured his contract. Kennard ended up taking a pay cut. According to overthecap.com, Kennard is now set to get $1.12 million in salary for 2022, with $600,000 of that guaranteed and a per-game roster bonus total worth $380,000. The latter was raised from $250,000. In Kennard's original deal, he didn't have any guaranteed salary but had been set to make $6.75M.
The reduction lowers Kennard's cap number from $9.1M to $2.1M, some serious help. It now gives the Cardinals about $11 million (according to overthecap.com) in cap space with a couple of days left to make moves if they so choose.
Starting left guard Justin Pugh's significant other had also put on Instagram Pugh had signed a new contract as he was scheduled to go into the final year of his deal. Multiple reports later had Pugh's new deal with a $5.5 million with $1.5M in incentives. Pugh had originally been scheduled to have a salary of a little more than $8M with a $1M roster bonus due soon, with a cap hit of of $11.85M. So Pugh's number will drop too and add cap space to the Cardinals.
The free agent "tampering" period begins Monday at 9 a.m. Arizona time.
