The Jacoby Brissett trade between the Arizona Cardinals and Baltimore Ravens was completed on Friday, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport and ESPN's Adam Schefter reported.
Arizona will send Brissett and a 2027 fifth-round pick in exchange for a 2027 fourth-round pick and a 2028 seventh-round pick. Essentially, they move up a few spots from their fifth-round draft pick and pick up an additional 2028 seventh-round pick.
That seems like a win-win trade given both teams' circumstances.
The Ravens were desperately looking for a quarterback replacement after the injury to Lamar Jackson, while the Cardinals were open to moving Brissett following his recent benching and subsequent trade request.
Cardinals eat $2.7 million to trade Jacoby Brissett just months after giving him a raise
It's a predictable outcome in Arizona, as many fans saw this coming ever since GM Monti Ossenfort decided to rework Brissett's deal.
Brissett held out in the offseason because he wanted to get paid closer to the starting quarterback he was projected to be heading into the season, with Kyler Murray officially out of the picture. The Cardinals ultimately gave in to those demands, giving Brissett a $10 million raise.
The issue was, Brissett wasn't truly a starting-caliber quarterback.
It's wild to me that they wanted to run it back with Brissett after a three-win season. He shouldn't have had much leverage in those negotiations, especially with Gardner Minshew II now an option. Minshew not only signed for cheaper but is now even proving to be the better option overall, hence head coach Mike LaFleur's decision to start him heading into a tough Week 9 road matchup against the Seattle Seahawks.
Brissett's demotion to QB3 had Arizona's decision to rework his deal predictably aging like milk. Before completing the trade with Baltimore on Friday, the Cardinals restructured Brissett's deal. They converted $2.7 million of his remaining $5.4 million salary into a signing bonus. Now the Ravens owe him just a base salary of $2.7 million, meaning the Cardinals are paying roughly $13 million of Brissett's $15.5 million guaranteed. They essentially ate $2.7 million to move on from Brissett, the one they gave a $10 million raise to in the offseason.
The silver lining is the draft capital the Cardinals received in the deal, but it's really not that much to get excited about. Honestly, the most exciting part is moving on from a Jacoby Brissett era that never even should've happened in the first place.
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