Everyone has that one player on their favorite team that they wish they didn’t dish out a big contract to; it’s inevitable. This is always the case. However, it hurts more when your team is coming off a three-win season, as the Arizona Cardinals did in 2025.
Bleacher Report put together a list of some of each team’s most overpaid players, and Arizona’s happened to be the guy who led the team in sacks this past season.
Josh Sweat was that player, and despite having a 12-sack season, he was deemed the most overpaid player on the roster.
Brad Gagnon of Bleacher Report put together the following analogy on Sweat.
“Sweat's debut season with the Cardinals was solid on paper (12 sacks, four forced fumbles in 17 games), but he couldn't carry a defense that ranked 29th in points allowed for a team that lost 14 games. And despite being the 17th-highest-paid edge defender in the league, he was not ranked in the top 25 among qualifiers at that position by PFF.” — Brad Gagnon
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It was a random assortment of players for the NFC West division. Colby Parkinson (Rams), Cooper Kupp (Seahawks), and Nick Bosa (49ers) were the others who joined Sweat on the list. They all ended up on the list for different reasons.
The difference is that the other three teams made the postseason, with the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl.
The Cardinals, and Sweat in particular, will need to put up a solid season for the contract to be worth it.
It will be interesting to see how 2026 goes for them.