There’s been persistent trade chatter around Cardinals OLB Josh Sweat this offseason. Fresh off the second double-digit sack season of his career, Sweat didn’t attend any of the voluntary work this spring, reportedly because he wasn’t happy with Arizona. He was in town for minicamp, but seemingly just to avoid the fines, as he didn’t participate in any on-field work. 

The exact source of Sweat’s discontent hasn’t been revealed. There’s no shortage of reasons for him to be frustrated with the Cardinals right now, and the rest of the league knows it. Other teams have been poking around and the trade speculation built up to a point that the team felt like it had to put out the fire. 

Even if a deal isn’t right around the corner, though, there’s too much smoke to ignore here. Even though the Cardinals just signed Sweat to a big deal a year ago, they are much further away from competing than they believed at the time. It doesn’t make sense for them to rule out trading Sweat, especially if he’s not a happy camper and especially because of the demand for pass rushers around the league. 

Potential Trade Compensation

Given what seems like an arms race from a few teams, especially in the NFC West, Arizona’s division, there should be a strong demand for pass rushers that continues through the summer and into the fall ahead of the NFL’s midseason trade deadline. That’s a proven way for teams to give themselves a jolt, as it’s far easier to onboard a pass rusher who has a thinner playbook and fewer responsibilities than, for example, a receiver. 

It also helps that Sweat is coming off the best season of his career, pulling down 12 sacks for an otherwise poor Cardinals defense. He set a new career best with four forced fumbles and ranked ninth among NFL edge rushers in pass rush win rate. Sweat had a good case for the Pro Bowl but was snubbed on the ballot, another thing he wasn’t happy about in his first year in the desert. 

Sweat’s age will be a limiting factor on his trade value, as he just turned 29. That’s not decrepit by any means but there is more risk for an acquiring team when it comes to injuries or general decline. Conversely, that could be a factor that makes the Cardinals more willing to part with Sweat despite only signing him last offseason. 

While the Cardinals have already paid a significant chunk of Sweat’s contract this year, paying out $7.2 million of his $18 million total compensation as an option bonus in March, there is a decent chance that Sweat would push for a new contract as part of a trade. He signed for $19.1 million a year which now ranks 23rd at the position. If he stays on his original contract, he’s only due $10.8 million in 2026 with no guarantees past this season. If he demands a reworked deal, it will likely weigh down the trade compensation even further. 

As far as trade compensation, if the stars all aligned — including multiple teams bidding against each other and Sweat compromising on a new contract — it’s not completely out of the question that Arizona could get a first-round pick. It’s far more likely that a trade package is centered around a Day 2 pick, however. 

The Eagles/Vikings trade earlier this offseason involving Jonathan Greenard has a lot of parallels to this situation. Like Sweat, Greenard is 29 years old and was underpaid relative to the rest of the pass rusher market at $19 million in average annual salary. He was entering the third year of his deal rather than the second and did not have a great season in 2025 due to injury, but like Sweat, he also had multiple double-digit sack seasons under his belt. Minnesota was willing to move him for the right price rather than pay up on a new contract. 

Ultimately, Greenard was traded along with a seventh-round pick for two third-round selections, equivalent value to a late-second-round pick per the traditional trade value chart. He then signed a two-year, $60 million extension with the Eagles that included $50 million in guaranteed money. This feels like a reasonable projection for a potential Sweat trade. 

Potential Landing Spots

Green Bay Packers

Mounting reports on social media about the Packers being interested in Sweat prompted the trade-denial report mentioned above, plus another denial seemingly from the team directed to local media. Still, there’s a reason this pairing created so much traction. The Packers are far and away the team that makes the most sense as a landing spot for Sweat in a trade this year. 

We’ll start with the presence of new DC Jonathan Gannon, who spent the last three seasons in Arizona as the head coach of the Cardinals. Before that, he was the defensive coordinator for Sweat in his best two years with the Eagles: the 2021 season when he made his first and only Pro Bowl, and in 2022 when Sweat hit double-digit sacks for the first time. Gannon’s presence was a huge reason Sweat inked with the Cardinals as a free agent last year. Neither side expected Gannon to be gone just months later, and that’s another potential source of Sweat’s discontent with the Cardinals. 

Both coach and player would probably welcome a reunion. The Packers could also use some help at edge rusher, especially for a team that fancies itself a Super Bowl contender in 2026. They swung a huge, out-of-character trade for Micah Parsons last fall, but he’ll be out until at least October as he continues to work his way back from his torn ACL. After ditching veteran Rashan Gary in a cost-cutting trade and letting Kingsley Enagbare walk in free agency, the Packers are down to former first-rounder Lukas Van Ness and some combination of Barryn Sorrell, Collin Oliver, Brenton Cox and fourth-round rookie Dani Dennis-Sutton. 

If Van Ness puts it together, the Packers could manage, but he has 8.5 career sacks and his numbers have gotten worse, not better, over the course of three years. No one else in that room inspires a lot of fear right now. A trade for Sweat would give the Packers someone who is not only a proven high-end NFL pass rusher but a textbook perfect fit in the new defense they’re installing. He’d hold the fort down until Parsons got back and then team up with him to form a ferocious duo that could help cover for potential weaknesses in the secondary. 

So what’s the holdup? I’m sure the Packers are not keen on getting grilled in negotiations after forking over so much for Parsons last year. A trade plus a new contract for Sweat would leave them pretty top-heavy at edge rusher, though they have the cap space to swing it right now. Time is on their side for the moment, as they can evaluate their roster during training camp and circle back to the Cardinals if no one steps up in Parsons’ absence. 

Green Bay doesn’t have its first-round pick in 2027 after giving it up for Parsons. They do have an extra fourth-round pick from the Cowboys after trading them Gary this offseason, and they also are currently projected to get four compensatory picks for losing free agents this offseason. That gives them 11 selections in total, so they do have a little bit of flexibility to deal away picks to fortify next season’s roster. 

San Francisco 49ers

The big upfront hurdle the two sides would have to clear here for a Sweat trade would be a deal within the division. Often, that’s a no-no, both for PR reasons and because there’s so much weight placed on beating the rest of your division in the NFL. 

But if both sides are comfortable and feel like they’re winning the deal, it’s not out of the question the Cardinals could send Sweat to the 49ers. The NFC West looks like it will be the best division in football once again. The Rams and Seahawks are early frontrunners for the Super Bowl yet again (both were 1-2 in our power rankings released on the site last week), and the 49ers are running up on their heels. Meanwhile, the Cardinals are the derpy dragon meme in the division. 

Arizona seems to have accepted that 2026 is going to be about taking some lumps while it restarts the rebuilding process with eyes on 2027 and finding a quarterback. Meanwhile, the 49ers are locked in an arms race to try to keep up as contenders. The Seahawks were the league’s No. 1 defense last year and the Rams traded for DE Myles Garrett. There’s been some smoke linking the 49ers to a potential move for a pass rusher, too, and little wonder. 

In this context, Sweat would fit in better with the 49ers than he would the Cardinals. San Francisco was last in the NFL with 20 sacks last year. That number should be better by virtue of getting Nick Bosa and Mykel Williams back from torn ACL’s, but asking those two alone and coming off injury to make up the difference between last place and a Super Bowl caliber pass rush might be unrealistic. Sweat beefs up the pass rush to potentially overpowering levels, takes pressure off of Bosa and Williams, the latter of whom is still developing as a pass rusher, and pushes guys like Keion White and third-rounder Romello Height into situational roles that are perhaps better suited for their talents at this stage. 

Oh, and it’s worth mentioning the 49ers have a staggering $71 million in available cap space right now, and will get more when they release WR Brandon Aiyuk. Whatever they don’t spend rolls over to 2027 when they’re currently projected in the red, but still, there should be plenty of room for a contract for Sweat if the 49ers can agree on the other compensation to Arizona. 

Chicago Bears

There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the Bears’ 2026 outlook, but one lingering question that could undo the season eventually is the lack of pass-rushing firepower. The Bears have not made a material addition to their edge rushing room this offseason, whether in free agency, the draft or a trade. Instead, they’re largely running back a defensive line for a defense that finished in the early 20s in both pressure rate and sacks. 

Chicago does have Montez Sweat on one side as a proven commodity and has high hopes for Austin Booker to take a step across from him. The Bears spent big on DE Dayo Odeyingbo last March but he tore his Achilles in Week 9. If he’s healthy, he could be a productive player, but typically the best teams try to reduce the ifs that they’re banking on. 

A trade to corner two-thirds of the NFL market on Sweats would give the Bears much more stability and proven production at edge rusher. It would also be good for both players to be able to play off of each other instead of absorbing extra attention from opposing offenses as the clear No. 1 pass rushers. As the Bears look to take another leap to real-deal Super Bowl contenders, this is a move they could explore to take them there. 

It wouldn’t be cheap, and the Bears would have to part with a premium pick and restructure some contracts to make a Sweat trade work. So far, they have not shown the appetite for a major move at defensive end like that. Perhaps the start to the season, good or bad, or another injury could create some more urgency on the part of the Bears. 

Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys have made a plethora of moves already to try and replace Parsons after blowing a hole in their defense on the eve of Week 1 last year. They traded for Gary from the Packers and drafted Malachi Lawrence in the first round to team up with 2025 second-rounder Donovan Ezeiruaku. They also re-signed Sam Williams and have a few other players with some flexibility to play on the edge. Odds are, the team has blown its available budget for edge rushers. 

However, there are a couple things that prevent me from discounting the Cowboys completely as a potential suitor for Sweat. The first is new DC Christian Parker, who is getting rave reviews early on in his Dallas tenure as a bright defensive mind. He overlapped with Sweat with the Eagles and runs a system the veteran pass rusher is well-suited to. If he wants Sweat, the Cowboys will take that under consideration. 

The second is this team has expectations of being much better on defense and overall in 2026. They kept virtually everyone from a prolific offense in place. If the defense improves as much as the team hopes, the Cowboys won’t just be playoff contenders; they could be dark horse Super Bowl threats.

One of the biggest missing ingredients for that right now, outside of experience for a unit with a lot of young contributors among both coaches and players, is a better pass rush. Gary hasn’t topped double-digit sacks in his career and has been stuck at 7.5 the past two seasons. Lawrence and Ezeiruaku are young and unproven. Williams is a gamble. 

Collectively, that group right now could be good enough to lift the Cowboys from awful to average or below-average. Add in Sweat, though, and the ceiling could be noticeably higher.