Actually, I don't think this looks all that bad for the Cardinals FO.
If the Niners go through all of this hooplah and don't come up with a contract that is better than the offers the Cards have presented Warner, they are the ones that look foolish. It starts to feel like the Niners are committed to carrying this show through, and may get stuck with a very large, hard to manage deal on a QB that has to learn another new system.
I am proud of Warner and what he did for us, but all I can think is, he failed to do it for us for 3 years before he came through... and helped us win 9.