Adrian Wilson reflects on his time with Cardinals
Mar 8, 2013, 11:21 PM | Updated: 11:30 pm
After 183 career games, the Adrian Wilson era came to an end Friday.
The Arizona Cardinals released the five-time Pro Bowl safety Friday in a move that is expected to save them $3 million of cap space in 2013.
Despite moving on, Wilson told Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 620 that he’ll always be an Arizona Cardinal.
“I think I’ve done enough here in my career to kind of leave my legacy — not only what I’ve done on the field, but in the community as well,” he said. “Obviously it’s a very sad day for a bunch of fans and a bunch of people in Arizona, but moving forward for the Cardinals, they wanted to go younger.
“They came to me and you know, we had to do what we had to do this morning and at the end of the day, I think it was probably best for both parties.”
Wilson also gave details of how the parting went down between he and new general manager Steve Keim, who has been in the Cardinals’ front office since 1999 and, who like Wilson, played college football at North Carolina State.
“There was a lot of tears, a lot of crying,” he said. “Obviously, I’ve known him since I was 17 years old and I consider Steve family, he considers me family. We’ve been through a lot together — not only in football kind of off the field as well.
“Obviously, this was a tough decision for him. He was kind of the one who brought me into the league and to be the one to say ‘your services are no longer needed’ had to be hard for him.”
But just because Wilson won’t put on a Cardinal uniform again doesn’t mean he’s done in the National Football League.
“I still have a lot left that I want to accomplish in my career,” he said. “I have about three years left in me and we’ll see what happens. I think there will be some teams interested but ultimately you want to find the perfect fit.
“If there isn’t a perfect fit, you at least want to find a good fit. We’ll see what’s out there for me.”
