It has been an interesting offseason for the Arizona Cardinals. They released Kyler Murray, fired head coach Jonathan Gannon and hired Mike LaFLeur as their new head coach after a strange interview cycle.
We can add one more interesting story to the offseason. One of their best players requested a trade.
Advertisement
According to Johnny Venerable on the PHNX Cardinals podcast, pass rusher Josh Sweat requested a trade after Gannon was fired. The front office told him no, and that was it to the story so far.
Sweat signed with the Cardinals last year on a four-year, $76.4 million contract, in part because he wanted to play for Gannon, previously his defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Sweat’s three best seasons have been with Gannon. He led the Cardinals with 12 sacks in 2025, his first season with the Cardinals.
Since the decision to fire Gannon, defensive coordinator Nick Rallis has been retained, so the defensive scheme shouldn’t change much, and Sweat possibly could be happy with that, which is why we haven’t heard much on the subject.
Advertisement
Trading Sweat would remove the Cardinals’ only threat as a pass rusher, and they wouldn’t save much against the salary cap. He is due $9.78 million in salary and an option bonus of 7.22 million on March 20. Per Over the Cap, the Cardinals would only save about $1.6 million in cap space and carry $14.8 million in dead money.
Don’t expect the Cardinals to move Sweat.
Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.
This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: Report: Josh Sweat requested trade from Arizona Cardinals