Last week, reports surfaced that the Arizona Cardinals were receiving trade calls for defensive end Josh Sweat, but the team does not intend to part with its star defensive end.
Sweat was absent during voluntary OTAs, but attended mandatory minicamp on Tuesday. Though he was with the Cardinals, he did not participate in practice. He has a good reason not to.
On Friday, Dan Graziano of ESPN reported that Sweat has been making it known that he’s not happy with Arizona one year after signing a four-year, $76.4 million deal. The key from Graziano’s report is that Sweat’s current deal is too good for the Cardinals to pass up.
“An acquiring team would take on a guaranteed $17 million in 2027 compensation for Sweat, and none of the remaining years or money on his contract is guaranteed after that,” he wrote. “That’s a good deal for a player such as Sweat and should result in decent outside interest.”
Sweat, 29, recorded a career-high 12 sacks for the Cardinals last season. He’s underpaid after having a career season in 2025. Whether it would come with the Cardinals or via a new team after a trade, Sweat could be looking for a pay raise this offseason.
On Tuesday, Arizona head coach Mike LaFleur shrugged off the idea that it was an issue that Sweat was not a participant at practice because he was not with the team for Phase 1 or Phase 2 of the offseason program. He claimed to have a “good conversation” with Sweat, per ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss.
“The situation is, again, he hasn’t practiced,” LaFleur said. “I’m not going to put a guy out on the field that hasn’t been out there to prep. That’s what Phase One and Phase Two are for, to get guys ready for Phase Three. Josh has always done this.
“Josh has always had his own program and he’s not the first guy on any team I’ve been a part of that’s been a part of that. In San Francisco, L.A., we’ve always had guys that were kind of like that and that’s OK. The one thing that you know about Josh is when he’s not in this building, he’s working and I think that shows when he gets out there on the field.”
The Cardinals believe Sweat will eventually get on the practice field, whether that comes later this week or for training camp remains to be seen. In between OTAs and training camp, there could be more headlines around Sweat if the defensive end still desires to play for a better team and/or on a better contract.
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