March 8, 2026, 4:49 p.m. MT<\/p>\n
The 2026 league year is coming next month. It officially begins on March 11, with the legal negotiating period beginning on March 9.<\/p>\n
The Arizona Cardinals<\/a> have many roster decisions to make before then.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Next up is linebacker Austin Keys.<\/p>\n Austin Keys 2025 season<\/p>\n Keys played almost the entire season for the Minnesota Vikings<\/a>. He was cut and then claimed off waivers by the Cardinals on Jan. 1. He was inactive for the Cardinals’ season finale.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n He was an undarfted rookie out of Auburn who signed with Minnesota and made the team out of training camp.<\/p>\n In 11 games, he had seven tackles and a sack. He played eight defensive snaps for the Vikings and 191 on special teams.<\/p>\n Ausyin Keys contract status<\/p>\n Keys is under contract through 2027, after which he will be a restricted free agent. He is schedule to make a little more than $1 million in salary, and that will be the cap hit as well.<\/p>\n Austin Keys offseason outlook<\/p>\n Keys was claimed with an eye on 2026. He will have the opportunity to make the team. The inside linebacker room is far from set. He played well on special teams as a rookie, so that will likely be the way he makes the team.<\/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 8, 2026, 4:49 p.m. MT The 2026 league year is coming next month. It officially begins on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[95878,375,390,2604,1327,7,6,95973,95974,95882,95890,95988,95896,95888,95895,95899,96008,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-802014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-cardinals","11":"tag-arizonacardinals","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","16":"tag-sstsncardinals","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagarizona-cardinals","19":"tag-tagminnesota-vikings","20":"tag-tagnational-sports","21":"tag-tagnfl","22":"tag-tagnfl-hub","23":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","24":"tag-tagsmg-listicle","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116198379562616225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802014","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=802014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}