March 5, 2026, 7:18 p.m. MT<\/p>\n
The Arizona Cardinals<\/a> announced a pair of releases that many were expecting. They were two salary-saving moves.<\/p>\n They announced the release of defensive lineman Bilal Nichols and linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither.<\/p>\n The moves save the Cardinals about $11 million in salary cap space.<\/p>\n Bilal Nichols and Akeem Davis-Gaither, varying disappointments<\/p>\n Nichols was signed to a three-year, $21 million contract in 2024. He had been a steady, reliable veteran. He had not missed a game since 2019.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n In two seasons with the Cardinals, he played in only 10 games for a combined 234 snaps. He had played over 600 snaps in the four seasons before that.<\/p>\n Davis-Gaither was signed to a two-year, $10 deal last offseason. He was projected to be a starter and was, but did have struggles. He played in all 17 games, starting 13 of them. He even had 117 total tackles, an interception, five pass breakups and a forced fumble. And he led the team with 20 total special teams tackles in 189 special teams snaps.<\/p>\n However, the emergence of Cody Simon in the second half of the season likely meant that Davis-Gaither would have only a depth and special teams role, which didn’t warrant the salary he was going to make.<\/p>\n Salary cap implications<\/p>\n Nichols was scheduled to make more than $5.8 million and count $7.8 million against the salary cap. The Cardinals gain $5.8 million in cap space and carry $2 million in dead money.<\/p>\n Davis-Gaither’s release saves $5.2 million in salary against the cap. His contract will count $1.5 million in dead money.<\/p>\n In all, the Cardinals save $11 million in cap space.<\/p>\n Get more Cardinals<\/a> and NFL coverage from Cards<\/a> Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Apple podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 5, 2026, 7:18 p.m. MT The Arizona Cardinals announced a pair of releases that many were expecting.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[95878,375,390,2604,1327,7,6,95973,95974,108396,95882,95890,111248,95888,95895,95899,96008,95883,95881],"class_list":["post-795249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arizona-cardinals","tag-accessfree","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-arizonacardinals","tag-cardinals","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","tag-sstsncardinals","tag-tagakeem-davis-gaither","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagarizona-cardinals","tag-tagbilal-nichols","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsmg-listicle","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116180264275533912","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}