The Arizona Cardinals, amazingly enough, just signed Edgerrin James to a 4 year deal today and my initial reaction was, “Are you serious?” Arizona is where careers go to die. But, after thinking about it, this isn’t so terrible. All they need is a slightly better line and a much more stable/better quarterback and this is an offense. Larry Fitzgerald is still my favorite young wide receiver out there, and Edgerrin James only makes him more valuable. Anquan Boldin has shown signs of being a legitimate one or two receiver and the rest of the receivers aren’t terrible.

This does pretty much eliminate Edge from my list of potential keepers, but his cap value in our fantasy league pretty much dictated that from the beginning. Larry Fitzgerald, though… I think his value just went up quite a bit.

It’s interesting, though. The Cardinals are always maligned for being perpetual losers. They go out and sign a big name free agent and instead of people praising the Cardinals for making a good move, of really trying to win, the immediate reaction is to criticize Edge for choosing the Cardinals. The implication, of course, is that the Cardinals just can’t win no matter who they put on the field. There’s a temptation to sign big free agents as a way to show the organizations commitment to winning. Often, though, it’s the unheralded players, the offensive and defensive lines, the role players, and the smart journeymen pickups that show the real commitment. We’ll see if the Cardinals have figured it out or not.