Looks like Keim time again for Arizona Cardinals

Photos: Arizona Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim

Kent Somers | The Republic | azcentral.com

Steve Keim doesn’t grant many interviews to local reporters these days, so hearing the Cardinals general manager's opinions requires listening to his weekly appearances on the team's flagship radio station.

Friday morning on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM, he promised to make a "deep dive into this roster" after the season, which will end with the Cardinals losing at least 10 games for a second consecutive season.

That prompts at least three questions from people who still care about the team:

1. Will Keim return in 2020?

2. Does he deserve to return in 2020?

3. Isn't he afraid he'll hit his head when he dives into such a shallow pool of talent?

Here are my best guesses, with the Cardinals at 3-9-1 with three games left.

1. Yes

2. No

3. That wasn’t as funny as I’d hoped.

The Cardinals are 6-22-1 over the last two seasons. On Sunday, they play the Browns at home, where they are 2-13-1 over the last two seasons.

Once upon a time, Keim was the Cardinals' genius in residence.

In his first three years on the job, the Cardinals won more games than in any other thee-year period in franchise history (34-14) and made the playoffs twice.

Keim plucked guys off the street and they produced. He traded a bologna sandwich and a Pop Tart for quarterback Carson Palmer.

He was named NFL executive of the year in two consecutive seasons.

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But the Cardinals haven’t had a winning season since 2015. They haven’t been over .500 at any point since the end of that season.

How many other general managers would keep their jobs under those circumstances?

There have been a series of mistakes and a bit of bad luck: awful draft picks, misevaluation of free agents, injuries, the "retirement" of Bruce Arians and a bad coaching hire.

Keim kept his job through all of that, plus an arrest and suspension for extreme DUI. That’s how much team President and Chairman Michael Bidwill thinks of Keim. That’s how close the two are.

Rob Schumacher/The Republic

That relationship is why I think Keim will be given one more year to try and make this work. Bidwill wants to believe in his friend.

If Bidwill were inclined to fire Keim, who was promoted to general manager in 2013, after last season would have been the time to do it.

He could have fired Keim along with coach Steve Wilks and started anew with a coach and a GM.

Instead, he kept Keim. And Bidwill and Keim then made the bold move of hiring a college coach with no NFL experience, Kliff Kingsbury, as their new head coach.

A year later, despite the 3-9-1 record, I doubt Bidwill is inclined to fire Keim, who is under contract through 2021. Kingsbury isn't going anywhere, and a new general manager would need to commit to making the Kingsbury experiment work.

Keim’s future with the team could depend upon the last three games.

Judging by record alone, the Cardinals aren’t much better than last year when they went 3-13 under Wilks.

But on the field, they have looked better, at least on offense. With the exception of a handful of games, the Cardinals have been competitive and on the cusp of winning.

Like most bad teams, however, they fail time and again in clutch situations.

One more victory, I think, will assure Keim’s return in 2020.

Bidwill can make the case that the Cardinals' record and performance on the field improved over 2019, so keeping Keim and Kingsbury makes some sense. Or, at the very least, Bidwill has an argument for it.

But if the Cardinals lose all three, things become dicey.

They will have lost nine consecutive games to finish the season, their longest losing streak since 2012. That streak in 2012 led to the firings of coach Ken Whisenhunt and General Manager Rod Graves, which led to the promotion of Keim and the hiring of Arians.

And if the Cardinals aren’t competitive in the next three games, then Bidwill’s mind could change, provided he’s leaning toward keeping Keim.

Kingsbury provided a few indications that he might be successful in the NFL, and Bidwill isn't going to blow out a coach after one season for a second consecutive year.

If the Cardinals finish 3-12-1, and look bad doing it, Bidwill will have a hard time selling fans, most importantly season-ticket holders, on keeping the status quo.

In his radio segments Keim has sounded optimistic about the future. The team will again pick high in the draft and will be about $70 million under the salary cap, according to some prognostications.

That’s more resources than Keim has ever had to work with in an off-season.

The question is: Is Keim the person to decide how those resources should be allocated? He's the one who oversaw the shoddy construction of the rosters of the last two seasons, after all.

My guess is that Bidwill will let Keim do his "deep dive" this off-season. If so, let's hope Keim learns something while combing through the wreckage of the last two seasons.

Reach Kent Somers at Kent.Somers@gannett.com. Follow him on twitter @kentsomers. Hear Somers every Monday and Friday at 7:30 a.m. on The Drive with Jody Oehler on Fox Sports 910 AM.

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