Ex-Eagles Star Gets Surprising Grade After Blockbuster Deal

The Philadelphia Eagles entered the offseason with a few of the top free agents heading to the open market.

Almost immediately after the Super Bowl ended the focus turned toward who could end up leaving the franchise. Philadelphia had Zack Baun, Josh Sweat, Milton Williams, and Mekhi Becton all heading to free agency among others. That's a lot of talent to go to free agency all at the same time. There were rumors and speculation about where these guys could go.

Baun signed an extension before even hitting the open market but the other three all went to free agency and left. Sweat entered the offseason as one of the top edge rushers in free agency. He ended up landing a four-year, $76.4 million deal with the Arizona Cardinals.

ESPN's Seth Walder shared a column grading the biggest moves of the offseason and gave the Cardinals a "B" for the deal.

"Grade: B," Walder said. "The Cardinals entered the offseason with a massive need for an edge rusher who can get after the quarterback and plenty of cap space to work with. Sweat was the best available at the position, so this was always a potential match. Sweat is coming off what was, in some ways, a down season for him. From 2021 to 2023, Sweat recorded a well-above-average 21 percent pass rush win rate at edge and recorded 27.5 sacks in that span, postseason included. In 2024, his win rate at edge dropped to 11 percemt, though he had 10.5 sacks, including the postseason. He had a huge Super Bowl (2.5 sacks) and could have been the Super Bowl MVP...

Sweat's pass rush get-off (time to cross the line of scrimmage) was much slower this season, slowing from 0.73 seconds in 2023 to 0.85 seconds, per NFL Next Gen Stats. That might not sound like a big change, but it is. Because of the numbers above, I was prepared to be somewhat critical of a Sweat signing. But the edge market has been much cheaper than I anticipated, and this isn't that much money when we compare it to past deals."

It's somewhat surprising the deal wasn't graded higher. Arizona notably needed to improve the pass rush and was linked to Sweat for a while. They got their guy at an affordable rate. Sweat had a good year in 2024 and could certainly shine in Arizona.