Due to his performance during the first four years of a very good but not stellar NFL career, the Cardinals owe Larry Fitzgerald a base salary in 2008 of $14.592 million. 

For one year.  $14.592 million.

Factoring in the prorations arising from his signing bonus and option bonus, Fitzgerald’s cap number for 2008 will be a whopping $16.485 million.

The technical term for Fitzgerald’s current posture is “leverage out the ying-yang.”  The only way to reduce his cap number is to sign him to a long-term extension, which will require roughly $25 million or so in guaranteed money.  Then again, with $14.592 million in money that becomes guaranteed as of Week One of the 2008 regular season, Fitzgerald might be able to get even more than $25 million on his next contract.

Then again, these are the Cardinals.  The poster children for “pay as you go.”  They don’t like to use big signing bonuses, because they prefer to take their cap lumps in the current year.  So while that 2008 base salary might make other teams scramble to extend the player, the Cardinals might simply shrug.

After all, $16 million in cap room to Fitzgerald is $16 million less in cap room that they’ll have to give to someone else.

But if the Cardinals decide that a receiver doesn’t merit that kind of a one-year salary and if they choose not to pay to him the kind of a long-term deal that he’s in a position to command, trading him becomes an option.

For Fitzgerald’s part, however, he doesn’t want to leave.  “I want to be a Cardinal,” he said on Monday.  “I enjoy it here.  I love my teammates.”

If that’s the case, then he might have to give up some of that leverage, work out a reasonable deal, and essentially take less money than he could get elsewhere to stay put.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Cards play this one.  They created this mess by signing Fitzgerald to a contract that resulted in such a gigantic jump in his salary.  How they clean it up could be one of the more intriguing stories of the offseason.

Especially since a new deal for Fitzgerald likely will cause Anquan Boldin to ask about an “adjustment” to his own contract, which runs through 2010.