Cardinals Place OLB Chandler Jones On IR, Sign OLB Isaiah Irving Off Broncos’ PS

October 15, 2020

The Arizona Cardinals announced Thursday that they’ve officially placed OLB Chandler Jones on injured reserve and signed LB Isaiah Irving off of the Broncos’ practice squad.

Cardinals HC Kliff Kingsbury announced Wednesday that Jones was undergoing biceps surgery and is out for the season, so this isn’t a big surprise.

Benjamin Albright first reported that the Cardinals were signing Irving.

Jones has two years left on his deal and has become severely underpaid compared to the top of the pass-rushing marketplace. Despite having eight more sacks than anyone else in the past four years, Jones’ yearly average is now more than $10 million behind the highest-paid pass rushers.

However, Jason La Canfora reported a few weeks ago that the Cardinals and Jones have not opened extension talks yet.

Jones, 30, is a former first-round pick of the Patriots back in 2012. He played out his four-year, $8.173 million contract before the Patriots picked up his fifth-year option back in April of 2015.

The Patriots elected to trade Jones to the Cardinals in 2016 for G Jonathan Cooper and a 2016 second-round pick. Arizona franchise-tagged Jones before signing him to a five-year, $82.5 million deal.

Jones is set to make base salaries of $16 million and $15.5 million over the next two years.

In 2020, Jones has appeared in four games for the Cardinals and recorded 10 tackles, one sack and a fumble recovery.

Irving, 26, wound up signing a three-year, $1.66 million contract with the Bears as an undrafted free agent out of San Jose State in 2017 but was cut loose coming out of the preseason and later signed to their practice squad.

He was eventually promoted the Chicago’s active roster in October of 2017 and re-signed to a one-year deal as an exclusive rights free agent last offseason. He re-signed to another one-year deal this offseason but was cut loose before the start of the season.

The Broncos signed him to their practice squad in September.

In 2019, Irving appeared in 13 games for the Bears and recorded 14 total tackles and no other statistics.