Arizona Cardinals president optimistic, confident heading into offseason

Arizona Cardinals President Michael Bidwill is not worried about the offseason his team is about to enter, at least when it comes to trying to re-sign certain players and other contractual matters.

“It’s obviously a lot of planning and working things out with different folks,” he told the Dan Bickley Show with Vince Marotta on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Thursday from Radio Row in New York. “There may be a person or two that we don’t see eye to eye on the number and there is some negotiation and things.

“But this is like this every year and sometimes people get fired up about it…but I think everything’s going to work itself out. I really feel confident about that.”

Roster turnover is a given in the NFL, so the team will certainly look different in 2014 than it did in 2013. While there may not be as much change as last year, when more than half of the final roster was not with the team in 2012, there will be plenty of new faces, some of whom could replace popular or important players.

“We’re going to build a better team and we’re going to have a lot of those players back,” Bidwill added. “Extend a lot deals, restructure some deals and do what’s in the best interest of the team because it’s all about winning and making sure we compete at the very highest level.”

The Cardinals weren’t far off in 2013, winning 10 games — three of which were against playoff teams and one of which came over the NFC Champion Seahawks in Seattle — which left Bidwill both optimistic and frustrated.

“We could have been a, potentially, an 11-5 team,” he said, pointing out how the Cardinals lost their Week 17 game to the San Francisco 49ers on a last-second field goal to finish the season 10-6. “We were either going to be 11-5 or 10-6, and not make the playoffs under any one of those scenarios.”

But it was how the team played while knowing the playoffs were out of reach that really gave Bidwill reason for hope.

“But the team still showed up and played their rear ends off,” he said of the final game.

He then turned his attention to the statistics.

“We were number 32 out of 32 teams in 2012 on offense, we were a top-half defense,” he said. “Last year, we moved from a bottom offense all the way up to 12th, and we were sixth overall at defense in the league.

“So huge strides under Bruce Arians, his coaching staff and Steve Keim.”

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