Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur didn’t have much to add about where things stand with quarterback Jacoby Brissett at a Monday press conference.
Brissett skipped the first two phases of the team’s voluntary work this spring as he looks for an adjustment to his contract and he remained away as they began organized team activities on Monday. LaFleur downplayed the impact of Brissett’s absence earlier this month by noting that the veteran has “played a lot of football” and would be able to pick up what the team is doing.
LaFleur did the same on Monday by saying that Brissett has “done probably everything we’ve ever done schematically.” He said everything else is status quo from where it was the last time he discussed Brissett’s absence.
“It’s the same as where we were a few weeks ago. . . . We’ve had contact, I’ll leave it at that,” LaFleur said.
LaFleur said he would be more concerned with a younger player missing time. Third-round pick Carson Beck would fall into that category, but he is seeing plenty of action along with Gardner Minshew while Brissett is away from the team.
Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett missed the early phases of the team’s offseason program and nothing changed with Monday’s move into the organized team activity phase of their work.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Brissett did not attend the team’s first OTA on Monday. The third phase of the offseason program features the most on-field work and the quarterbacking portion will be handled by Gardner Minshew and third-round pick Carson Beck.
The OTAs are voluntary and next month’s minicamp will be the only mandatory work of the offseason. Brissett will be subject to fines if he does not attend those workouts.
Brissett started the final 12 games of the season for the Cardinals in 2025 and is looking for a bump in pay that reflects the possibility that he’ll be the starting quarterback again this season. Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur said earlier this month that the team has had good dialogue with Brissett, but didn’t share any of the details of how that dialogue might lead to Brissett’s appearance on the practice field.
Given the increased work for the others in his absence, the current approach could ultimately work against Brissett’s bid to land the starting role.
Cardinals linebacker Mack Wilson was injured in a Week 9 game against the Cowboys. The team placed him on injured reserve with a rib injury a week later, and he didn’t play again last season.
Wilson said Saturday that his injury was far worse.
“I was in a dark place for sure,” Wilson said, via Darren Urban of the team website. “Rib fracture, punctured lung, was in the hospital for three days, tube in my chest. It was tough for me, coming out of the hospital, having to sleep sitting [expletive] upright for three weeks.”
Wilson, 28, earned captain honors and became the playcaller on defense last season. That lasted only eight games as the injury cost him the final nine games of the season.
Wilson had missed only seven games in his first six seasons.
“It was a learning experience, a humbling experience,” Wilson said of his injury last season. “But I took a backseat, and I was able to reevaluate my career and my life in general. Remember why I do it. I have some hunger in me and feel this year is going to be one of the best years of my career.”
In a sea of team-produced schedule-release video (some of which have morphed into way-too-long short films), there are two ways to stand out. One, be really good. Two, be really bad.
As to the latter, the Cardinals are the 2026 champions.
Via Yanyan Li of Front Office Sports, the Cardinals’ offering was relentlessly mocked as “AI slop.” Because, frankly, it is. Watch for yourself. (And then peruse the replies.)
Li notes that the Arizona effort apparently prompted multiple other teams to emphasize that they did not use AI in the creation of their schedule-release videos.
Regarding the substance of the Cardinals’ video, the mascot-driven effort didn’t resonate for most. The vast majority of the jokes simply didn’t land.
There’s no requirement for teams to make a schedule-release video. And it’s also not mandatory that the effort be aimed at going viral in a good way. For every team that chooses to try, there’s a risk it will go viral in a bad way.
Which the Cardinals have learned, the hard way.
Former NFL defensive end Josh Mauro died last month at 35. Via the California Post, authorities have determined that Mauro’s death occurred as a result of an accidental drug overdose.
Officially, the cause of death was “acute combined fentanyl, cocaine, and ethanol intoxication.”
Mauro, who played college football at Stanford from 2010 through 2013, went undrafted in 2014. After four years with the Cardinals, Mauro spent one with the Giants and one with the Raiders. He returned to Arizona for the final two season of his career, in 2020 and 2021.
He appeared in 80 career regular-season games, with 40 starts.
