17 hours Ago By Matthew Schmidt
The Arizona Cardinals got their man, signing edge rusher Josh Sweat to a massive four-year, $76.4 million contract . The deal features $41 million in guaranteed money and comes on the heels of Sweat's dominant Super Bowl performance.
And that's just the thing: Sweat's showing in the Philadelphia Eagles' resounding Super Bowl victory over the Kansas City Chiefs may have largely inflated his value, which caused the Cardinals to overpay for him. Don't get me wrong: Arizona needed a pass rusher, and Sweat may very well have been the best one on the market (but that's actually debatable). However, the Cardinals just paid huge money for a guy who registered 41 tackles and eight sacks in 2024 and has only achieve double-digit sacks once in his career since entering the NFL in 2018.
So, yeah: Arizona definitely broke the bank here, and not in a good way. The Cardinals entered free agency with ample cap room, so they definitely had no problem affording Sweat. That's not the issue.
It's that they just spent a huge chunk of money on a player who is just good—not great. I do like the pass-rushing duo of Sweat and Baron Browning, the latter of whom agreed to re-sign in Arizona before free agency began. But honestly, the Cardinals may have been better off pursuing someone like Chase Young, who has far more upside than Sweat but probably wouldn't have been nearly as expensive (we'll see what he ends up getting).
Heck, Dayo Odeyingbo and Azeez Ojulari would have been intriguing options, as well. But the Cards decided to roll with Sweat, who logged six tackles and 2.5 sacks in the Super Bowl.
That outing on such a national stage definitely made him more expensive, but the Cardinals apparently had no qualms about footing the bill..
