This article started with a simple concept: Roughly how much payroll space might the Cardinals have to make a major addition at the trade deadline that would help them in both 2021 and 2022? And where on the depth chart should they look for such help?
I didn’t get very far into either question when I started writing this because I immediately ran into a wall of payroll confusion that stopped me in my tracks.
You see, I thought the Cardinals cut payroll this offseason.
In fact, I was sure that they did. After all, I had tracked payroll all offseason and wrote no less than three articles on the subject between October and February.