The 2026 league year is coming next month. It officially begins at 1 p.m. Arizona time on March 11, with the legal negotiating period beginning at 9 a.m. Arizona time on March 9.

The Arizona Cardinals have many roster decisions to make before then.

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Leading up to the new league year, we will profile every player on the roster, go over what they did last season, what their contract status is and what they face in 2026.

Next up is defensive lineman Dalvin Tomlinson.

Dalvin Tomlinson 2025 season

Tomlinson was one of the rare Cardinals that played and started all 17 games last season. However, while his tackle numbers were similar to his previous two seasons with the Cleveland Browns, he didn’t make as much of an impact in sacks and quarterback hits. He had 26 tackles (13 solo) in 2025, which matched his numbers in 2024 and was close to the 28/12 he had in 2023. In those two Browns seasons, he had 3.0 sacks each year with only one last season and 30 QB hits compared to only three in 2025. He played 555 snaps (48 percent, which was less than 623/62 in 2023 and 610/60 in 2024).

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Dalvin Tomlinson contract status

In the second year of a two-year deal that included three void years, the 32-year-old (on Feb. 28) Tomlinson has a salary of $12.74 million for this season and a $1 million roster bonus due on the fifth day of the league year (March 15). In addition, $2 million of the base salary becomes guaranteed that day. His salary-cap charge is $16.2 million.

Dalvin Tomlinson offseason outlook

Tomlinson is surely a candidate to be released prior to March 15. That would negate the roster bonus as well as the salary guarantee and would create $6.8 million in dead money this year to account for the four years of proration from the $8.5 million signing bonus he received in 2025. A post-June 1 designation would push $5.1 million in cap charges to 2027, while keeping the $16.2 million cap hit on the books through June 1.

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This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: Dalvin Tomlinson’s contract status and 2026 offseason outlook