Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals are down to one kicker on their 90-man roster.

Arizona announced the release of Josh Karty on Thursday afternoon. Chad Ryland is now the only kicker in Arizona.

Karty was claimed off of waivers from the Rams last season, but he never played in a game. He was 10-of-15 on field goals and 23-of-26 on extra points in eight games for the Rams in 2025.

The Cardinals also announced the signing of defensive back Isaiah Oliver. He appeared in 31 games for the Jets over the last two seasons and posted 112 tackles. He spent the 2023 season with the 49ers and spent five years with the Falcons after being drafted in the second round in 2018.

Speculation about edge rusher Josh Sweat’s future with the Cardinals has picked up over the course of his absence from the team’s offseason program, but a report on Wednesday tosses some cold water on thoughts of a trade.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that the Cardinals are not going to trade Sweat. Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur sent a similar message last week when asked about a report that the Cardinals have gotten trade offers from other teams.

Sweat also missed the voluntary portions of the offseason work after signing a four-year, $76.4 million deal with Arizona last year. He had 30 tackles, 12 sacks, four forced fumbles and a fumble recovery in his first season with the team.

Based on the recent word from inside and outside the organization, Sweat will get a chance to add to those totals in a Cardinals uniform this fall.

Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett is sitting out voluntary offseason practices while he seeks a new contract, which means he’s not building chemistry with wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr.

Asked whether he has developed chemistry with Brissett, Harrison answered, “Not much. He’s got to be here to do that.”

Harrison added, however, that he supports his teammate seeking what he considers a fair deal.

“I’m all supportive of what he’s doing. He has to do what’s best for him and his family,” Harrison said.

Ultimately, Harrison said a quarterback and a wide receiver get on the same page by working together.

“Reps are the best thing, constant communication off the field, whether it’s meeting with him, watching film together,” Harrison said.

Harrison and Brissett aren’t doing that, and there’s no telling when or if Brissett will get a contract that’s to his satisfaction.

Larry Fitzgerald Sr., a long-time Minnesota sports reporter and the father of soon-to-be Hall of Fame receiver Larry Fitzgerald Jr., has died. He was 71.

Marcus Fitzgerald, the brother of Larry Jr., announced their father’s passing on social media, via Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of our father, Larry Fitzgerald Sr.,” Marcus wrote. “A devoted father, husband, grandfather, and a true pioneer in the Minnesota broadcasting community, he spent his life pouring into the people and the city he loved so much.

“He left us peacefully this afternoon, surrounded by his family and the people who loved him most.”

Larry Fitzgerald Sr. was a fixture in the Minnesota sports scene since 1978.

“The Vikings organization is saddened by the passing of Larry Fitzgerald Sr., a distinguished journalist and trusted voice in Minnesota sports for nearly 50 years,” the Vikings said in a statement. “Larry built relationships with players, coaches and staff members for each of the local teams and was recognized across the NFL, covering dozens of Super Bowls and other major events.

“Beyond his reputation in the media, Larry was a dedicated father and a community leader who cared deeply about the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Our hearts are with Larry Jr., Marcus and the entire Fitzgerald family, as well as Larry’s friends and colleagues as they mourn his loss.”

We extend our condolences to Larry Fitzgerald Sr.'s family, friends, and colleagues.

Now that the Supreme Court has declined to accept the NFL’s last-ditch effort to force all or part of the Brian Flores case into arbitration, the litigation will finally get going.

And the going could get nasty.

By way of background, I have handled many employment cases. From both sides. After working for years at a firm that focused on representing corporate clients that had been sued (no matter how strong or weak a given case may have been), I decided that I was more interested in representing individuals who had cases I believed to be strong.

So I’ve been there, done that. Many times.

Here’s the reality. No company that has been sued for wrongful termination will admit it. The witnesses will have locked into their stories months before it’s time to take the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Proving that the party line is essentially a lie requires a relentless pursuit of circumstantial evidence to contradict the predictable denial of discrimination, retaliation, etc. (For example, if the plaintiff was fired for violating a specific workplace rule, it’s useful to show that others violated the same rule, without being fired or even disciplined.)

This means that, in the Flores case, his lawyers will aggressively pursue deposition testimony from a wide range of witnesses from the league office and the various teams that have been sued (so far, the Dolphins, Broncos, Giants, Texans, Cardinals, and Titans). Plenty of the witnesses (starting with the Commissioner and any owners) will not react well to being verbally poked, prodded, and pressed for anything beyond the predictable default position: “we didn’t do anything wrong.” These witnesses will emerge from the deposition process feeling anywhere from frustrated to flat-out pissed off.

Flores (along with the other plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton) will deal with the same kind of thing. The lawyers representing the NFL and its teams will look for anything they can find to make them look bad. They’ll dig and dig and dig some more to make the process as uncomfortable as it can be. They’ll throw mud at the wall. They’ll throw mud directly at the plaintiffs. They’ll try to catch them in any potential misstatement, big or small, that could then be characterized at trial as a lie.

In the deposition process, there’s a wide range of latitude when questioning a witness. With no jury present, the lawyers don’t have to worry about being so aggressive (to the point of being openly hostile) that it may alienate the people who will decide the case.

This is what I’d typically say to anyone who was interested in suing a current or former employer: “Think of the worst thing about yourself that you wouldn’t want other people to know. You don’t have to tell me what it is. Just think of what it is. Then, think of what would happen if that thing became public. And then assume that, at some point during this litigation, it will.”

The unofficial playbook for lawyers defending corporate clients against claims of illegal employment practices includes turning the tables on the plaintiff in the hopes of making the plaintiff look as bad as possible when it’s time to present the case to a jury. It gets messy. It gets ugly. And, like the Commissioner and owners who are questioned by Flores’s lawyers, Flores will emerge from his deposition feeling anywhere from frustrated to flat-out pissed off.

That’s how it goes. The discovery process becomes the legal equivalent of a street fight. Which could be bad for the league, the teams, and/or Flores, Wilks, and Horton.

As the snippets of deposition testimony come to light, it will be very good for my current business.

Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett’s ongoing absence from the team’s offseason program has opened the door for others to get more work as the team prepares for the 2026 season.

Gardner Minshew is at the top of that list. The veteran signed with the team as a free agent this offseason and is getting a better chance at earning the starting job in Arizona than some might have thought earlier this year.

Minshew has started games for five teams under a variety of circumstances over his seven-year career, which has given him some perspective on making too much of any one moment in time when he was asked about being the No. 1 quarterback for the Cardinals.

“At some point, someone’s going to better than you and they’re gonna play,” Minshew said, via David Brandt of the Associated Press. “At some point, you’ll be the best guy in the room and you’ll get a chance to play. All you really have is your opportunity to work and get better and enjoy it with the guys around you.”

Third-round pick Carson Beck is also getting some extra looks while Brissett is away from the team and all of the quarterbacks could wind up getting their shot in the regular season unless the Cardinals are significantly better than expected this fall.

The Cardinals are projected to be one of the worst teams in the NFL this season, with oddsmakers listing them as underdogs in every game. One of their best players, edge rusher Josh Sweat, and their presumed starting quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, are not participating in the voluntary offseason program.

Brissett wants a pay raise for this season, while the Cardinals are getting trade calls for Sweat.

New head coach Mike LaFleur reiterated that he is not worried about any player’s absence.

“The few guys that weren’t out there that you guys probably saw today, very much we knew that they weren’t going to be here and a lot of it was planned,” LaFleur said, via NFL.com.

Brissett, 33, is entering the second year of a two-year deal he signed in March 2025. He is scheduled to make $4.88 million in 2026, with a max value of $5.39 million, but only $1.5 million is guaranteed.

Despite LaFleur bringing a new scheme, the coach cites Brissett’s 10 seasons across six teams.

“Like I said, you’d be hard-pressed to see if Jacoby hasn’t done most of what we are doing physically,” LaFleur said. “It’s word association from that point and cadences and all that kind of stuff. The hardest thing to teach a player is the speed of the game -- an NFL game, in general. He’s played a lot of ball, so, he’ll be just fine.”

Sweat led the team with a career-high 12 sacks last season. He had signed a four-year, $76.4 million deal with the Cardinals to reunite with coach Jonathan Gannon, who was Sweat’s defensive coordinator in Philadelphia for two seasons.

“I don’t even read into the offers,” LaFleur said. “I’m just excited about the fact that I don’t have to game plan against this guy. I got to know him when I first got this job. He’s a good dude. He goes about his process, and he’s not the first guy to go about his process the way he is in terms of how he’s training and all that.”

Sweat skipped the offseason program last season, too.

Arizona will hold a mandatory minicamp on June 8-10, which will result in a fine of $107,911 for any player who misses all three days.

Tuesday’s decision by the Supreme Court to not accept the NFL’s petition for appeal in the Brian Flores case means that all of his claims will be decided in court, not in arbitration.

And Flores recently added some new factual allegations to the various legal theories raised in his four-year-old litigation against the league and various teams.

In the third amendment to his initial civil complaint, Flores has added specific allegations of retaliation against the NFL.

The 483-paragraph, 106-page document includes at paragraphs 298 through 312 allegations that the NFL has retaliated against Flores since the filing of his initial lawsuit.

“Despite it being widely understood by the public and sports media that Mr. Flores should be considered one of the elite Head Coach candidates, Mr. Flores has not been offered a Head Coach job since starting this lawsuit,” the new complaint alleges at paragraph 311.

From paragraph 312 of the new complaint: “The NFL teams’ failure to hire Mr. Flores is consistent with an NFL Head Coach hiring process that is [sic] has for decades treated Black candidates disparately to white candidates and led to significantly disparate impact. It is also consistent with a culture of retaliation in which NFL teams close ranks against those who raise complaints of discrimination.”

The new factual allegations did not result in an additional cause of action; the existing lawsuit already includes multiple specific claims for retaliation.

As to the concept of retaliation based on the failure of teams to hire Flores as its head coach, the current complaint lists only one team — the Texans. In 2022, Houston made Flores one of three finalists for the job (along with Josh McCown and Jonathan Gannon) before hiring Lovie Smith instead. Flores claims that the decision to not hire him was motivated by the filing of his lawsuit against the NFL and multiple teams.

Although no specific other teams have been accused of failing to hire Flores in retaliation for filing and pursuing his lawsuit, the discovery process could lead to evidence that would support a finding that Flores was not given proper consideration by one or more teams with vacancies during the 2023, 2024, 2025, and/or 2026 hiring cycles.

The contention that the NFL maintains a “culture of retaliation” shows that Flores suspects his failure to get more interviews and/or any offers resulted from retaliation. Time will tell whether other specific teams are added to the case as defendants.

Flores’s current claims target the Dolphins, Texans, Broncos, and Giants. (His co-plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, have sued the Cardinals and Titans, respectively.)

Obviously, Flores won’t be able to force any team to hire him. His aggressive legal arguments won’t make that any easier. Throughout the litigation, however, he has chosen doing what he believes is right over what would be expedient for his career.

And so he’ll continue to serve as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, while waiting for a head-coaching opportunity that may never materialize. In the end, the NFL and/or specific teams could be on the wrong end of a verdict that requires them to pay Flores as if he has been a head coach since 2022.

Even if Flores never becomes a head coach again.

The Cardinals have received trade calls about Pro Bowl defensive end Josh Sweat, according to Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report.

Sweat has not attended the Cardinals’ voluntary offseason program.

The Cardinals signed Sweat to a four-year, $76.4 million deal in the 2025 offseason, reuniting him with Jonathan Gannon. Gannon, who was the Eagles’ defensive coordinator in 2021-22 when Sweat was in Philadelphia, was fired by the Cardinals after last season.

Sweat set a career-high with 12 sacks in his first season in Arizona. He has 55 sacks in eight seasons, along with 114 quarterback hits.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to accept the NFL’s appeal in the case brought by Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (and Steve Wilks and Ray Horton). The decision allows his case to proceed in court — and, in theory, to culminate with a public trial.

Both sides have issued comments in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“We respect the Supreme Court’s decision not to grant review,” a league spokesperson said. “Regardless of the forum, we are fully prepared to defend ourselves as this matter proceeds.”

Said Flores’s lawyers: “We are pleased that the Supreme Court declined to accept the NFL’s appeal. The NFL must now accept that its commissioner cannot be the arbitrator over discrimination claims against the league and its teams. We look forward to litigating these claims in court.”

Obviously, the league wants the forum to be its in-house arbitration process. It keeps things secret, and it tips the scales of justice in the league’s favor.

But, no, the NFL won’t suddenly surrender. It will aggressively challenge Flores at every turn, with the goal of securing a victory without having to take the case to trial.

When will that happen? It could take months. Maybe years. After all, it took nearly 52 months to get the case past the threshold question of whether the claims will be resolved in court or in arbitration.