Luis Sharpe, a 13-year member of the Cardinals organization, has died. He was 65.
Via Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic, Sharpe’s wife, Tameka Williams-Sharpe, announced his passing on social media.
Born in Havana, Sharpe played high school football in Detroit. He played collegiately at UCLA.
The Cardinals selected Sharpe with the 16th overall pick in the 1982 draft. His career spanned two states and three names — the St. Louis Cardinals, the Phoenix Cardinals, and the Arizona Cardinals. He also played for the Memphis Showboats of the USFL in 1985.
Sharpe was a Pro Bowler in 1987, 1988, and 1989. He was named a second-team All-Pro in 1988 and 1990.
Sharpe, as noted by McManaman, had struggles in his post-playing life, with drugs, alcohol, multiple arrests, and incarceration. He also was shot twice during drug deals gone bad. He said in December 2024 that he has been sober for eight years.
He partnered with his daughter, Rebekah, to offer education regarding addiction. They worked as ambassadors for Hall of Fame Health, a group that is affiliated with the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“I was a four-time loser,” Luis Sharpe said in November 2024. “I went to prison four times, I was shot twice, I was called a football-hero-to-crackhead-zero. And now here I am, traveling with my daughter to all these different cities and watching her audience engagement, how she educates the audience and her great stage presence. She’s able to read the room and she has this masterful storytelling ability at these Hall of Fame events.”
We extend our condolences to Sharpe’s family, friends, and teammates.
The Cardinals have found a new way to make money off their fans traveling to road games.
The team today unveiled a new program called Cardinals Premier Travel, in which the team will provide a private flight, two nights in a hotel, a team-sponsored tailgate and welcome reception, and other amenities. Packages will start at $2,500 per person.
“In recent years, the number of Cardinals fans who travel to support the team at road games has increased exponentially,” Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill said in a statement. “To meet that clear demand, we are introducing Cardinals Premier Travel, which will offer fans an unprecedented opportunity to travel to games in comfort, style and convenience, just like the team.”
The program will start with the Cardinals’ Monday night game on November 3 at Dallas.
“Feedback from fans was clear that this was the No. 1 choice among the road games in 2025 and the expectation is to grow from this starting point,” Bidwill said.
Given how many rabid NFL fans travel to see their favorite teams on the road, it’s surprising that programs like this aren’t more commonplace. Teams know their fans are spending money on the road, and the logical next step for the NFL is for teams to get a share of that money.
The next generation of the Fitzgerald family is on the brink of playing big-time football.
Via Eli Lederman of ESPN.com, receiver Devin Fitzgerald has committed to Notre Dame’s incoming class of 2026. He’s the son of future Hall of Fame receiver Larry Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald picked Notre Dame over UCLA.
The effort to land Fitzgerald was led by Notre Dame receivers coach Mike Brown.
“I’ve developed into a better ballplayer, and they really think I’m going to turn into a great player,” Fitzgerald told Lederman. “I’ve known Coach Brown since I was 5 years old. He’s shown me that I can come in, step up and play early. That’s their plan with me.”
Larry Fitzgerald was a star receiver at Pitt. He was the third overall pick in the 2004 draft, and he spent 17 seasons in the NFL.
He caught 1,432 passes (second all time) for 17,492 yards (second all time) and 121 touchdowns (sixth all time).
We’ve recently taken a look at the coaches on the hot seat for 2025. This week, a reader asked the same question as it relates to quarterbacks.
Plenty of them are feeling the heat, or should be, this season. Let’s take a look at each spot, based on the loose arrangement of the conferences and divisions that has been tattooed onto my brain.
Justin Fields, Jets: His contract has $10 million in guarantees that spill into 2026. That’s not enough to guarantee him two years as the starter. He needs to do enough in 2025 to earn 2026 — and beyond.
Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins: His contract guarantees his pay through 2026. If the Dolphins fall flat and change coaches, the next coach likely will want a fresh start at quarterback. While the cap charges will complicate a split before 2027, every high-end quarterback contract eventually leads to a big cap charge when the relationship ends. The next coach (and the next G.M., if owner Stephen Ross cleans house) may want to rip the Band-Aid off in one motion.
Aaron Rodgers, Steelers: He says he’s pretty sure this is his last year. If he doesn’t play well enough for the Steelers in 2025 and if he wants to keep playing in 2026, the Steelers may give him the same cold shoulder that Russell Wilson got after 2024.
All Browns quarterbacks: With Jacksonville’s first-round pick in their back pocket, the Browns could be in position to get a future franchise quarterback in next year’s draft. That raises the stakes for every quarterback currently on the Cleveland roster. Because there’s a chance none of them will be the starter in 2026.
Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson, Colts: It already feels like Jones will be the Week 1 starter. He’ll then have a chance to lock the revolving door the Colts have had since Andrew Luck retired. If he doesn’t, the Colts will be looking elsewhere in 2026. As to Richardson, his best play is to play better than he ever has, if and when he gets the chance.
Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars: Every new coach wants his own quarterback, except when the coach inherits a true franchise quarterback. But Tony Dungy landing with Peyton Manning doesn’t happen very often. And it’s not clear whether Lawrence is a short-list franchise quarterback. He was on track to be one as of 2022. The past two years haven’t been good enough, long-term contract notwithstanding. What do coach Liam Coen and G.M. James Gladstone want? If Lawrence doesn’t play better in 2025 than he did in 2024, Lawrence and everyone else may find out in 2026.
Geno Smith, Raiders: He’s being mentioned simply to say he’s not on the hot seat. He has $18.5 million in guarantees for 2026, and his close ties to Pete Carroll will keep Smith around for at least two years. (Unless, of course, a certain minority owner decides otherwise.)
Dak Prescott, Cowboys: He’s probably not on the hot seat, because his $60 million per year contract would wreak havoc on the salary cap if the Cowboys were to cut or trade him (yes, he has a no-trade clause, but he can waive it) in 2026. The complication for the Cowboys is that his $45 million salary for 2027 becomes fully guaranteed on the fifth day of the 2026 league year. They’re basically stuck — all because they waited too long to give him his second contract, and then waited too long to give him his third contract.
Russell Wilson, Giants: If he’s the Week 1 starter (if Jaxson Dart lives up to his first-round draft stock, Wilson shouldn’t be), the clock will be ticking. Immediately. In 2004, the Giants benched Kurt Warner after nine games for Eli Manning, even though the Giants were 5-4 at the time. When Dart is ready, Dart will play. Even if Wilson makes it through 2025 without getting benched, he’ll have to do plenty to keep Dart on the sideline for 2026.
Jordan Love, Packers: He’s not on the hot seat per se, but he needs to play better in 2025 than he did in 2024. If not, he will be on the hot seat in 2026. The wild card in Green Bay is new CEO Ed Policy, who operates as the de facto owner of the team.
J.J. McCarthy, Vikings: He’s getting his shot to play, after a knee injury wiped out his rookie season. Anything other than an outright disaster will ensure his status for 2026. At worst, he’d have to compete with a more established veteran next year.
Tyler Shough, Saints: He’ll need to do enough in 2025 to earn the chance to do well enough in 2026 to get the Saints to not pursue the grandson of Archie Manning in 2027. (And, yes, I think Arch Manning will spend two years as a college starter before entering the draft.)
Bryce Young, Panthers: In year three, he needs to continue the growth he showed late in the 2024 season, in order to secure a fourth season, the fifth-year option, and ideally (for him) a second contract.
Kyler Murray, Cardinals: His contract gives him two more years of financial security. But this is the team that drafted Murray a year after using the 10th overall pick on Josh Rosen (not Lamar Jackson). So who knows what the Cardinals will do if Murray doesn’t propel the team into contention this year?
Sam Darnold, Seahawks: He has a one-year deal, as a practical matter. And the Seahawks seem to really like rookie Jalen Milroe. Darnold will need to play very well to secure his status for 2026.
Matthew Stafford, Rams: It’s not the “hot seat” as much as it’s a mutual understanding that player and team are taking things one year at a time. After the season, both sides will have to recommit. Whether the Rams will want to do that depends on how Stafford plays in 2025, and on their other options for staffing the position in 2026.
That’s a lot of names. But it’s no surprise. There aren’t many true, unquestioned, year-after-year franchise quarterbacks. And the teams that don’t have one are always hoping to find one.
It has created more quarterback movement in recent years than ever before. Plenty of the names listed above will be on the move in 2026.
Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray said early in the offseason that he feels fully recovered from his 2022 torn ACL and that makes him want to run more this season in order to unleash the full potential of the team’s offense.
Murray’s goals didn’t change over the course of the team’s offseason program and it has veteran safety Budda Baker excited about what’s to come in the fall. Baker told Mina Kimes of ESPN that he thinks Murray has become underrated because he hasn’t been utilizing his full skill set and that seeing him put it all into play this spring is “definitely exciting” because of what it will mean once it is time to play games.
“He’s kind of been in his bag this whole offseason, doing no-look throws and having a great offseason training camp,” Baker said. “K1, he’s going to run a little bit more. A little outside the pocket, inside the pocket throws. He’s going to kind of do it all and he’s going to get all his guys the rock.”
The Cardinals won eight games last season after posting eight over the previous two seasons, so the arrow is pointing up in Arizona. Murray staying in his bag for the rest of the year would be a good way to push them even higher in 2025.
Tuesday was an interesting day. More interesting days could be coming.
After the NFL and NFL Players Association managed to hide the 61-page ruling in a landmark collusion arbitration for more than five months, the cat is out of the bag. And some players are paying attention.
Multiple individuals who routinely interact with players tell PFT that multiple players have begun to inquire regarding their rights, and regarding their options both as to the league and as to the union.
As one source with knowledge of the collusion grievance told PFT, Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert would be the perfect plaintiff against either entity. The exchange between Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill shows coordination (i.e., collusion) between two owners regarding the contracts given to Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert and Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray.
The threshold question becomes whether Herbert is within the additional 594 veteran players for whom damages were sought in the collusion grievance, beyond Murray, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, and Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson. There’s a still-hidden list of 594 names that was attached as an exhibit to the 61-page ruling. The league would argue that, as to those players, the issue has been concluded.
The counter would be that discovery was taken only as to the three quarterbacks. From Herbert’s perspective, there could be a treasure trove of communications within the Chargers organization regarding whether Herbert will (or did) want a fully-guaranteed deal, beginning in the immediate aftermath of the Deshaun Watson fully-guaranteed contract.
The other 593 players (if Herbert’s name is on the list) could make the same argument. They would ask, essentially, how did my rights get caught up in and extinguished by the three-quarterback collusion case when I never had a chance to prove that the clear effort to encourage collusion resulted in a specific effort by my team to restrict guarantees in my deal?
The union faces a different problem. The claim by the specific members of the NFLPA would fall under the federal duty of fair representation. And there would be at least two different potential avenues, as we see it.
For the 594 players whose rights were tied up in (and extinguished by) the existing case, they would (or at least could) argue that the union failed to properly develop and investigate their grievances by simply lumping them in with the three main claimants and without fully investigating the claims. For all anyone knows, there are internal smoking-gun texts or emails as to any, some, or all of the 594 players that would say, for example, “I know [Player X] wants a fully-guaranteed contract, but the Management Council told all teams to limit guarantees. We need to comply.”
For the players not within the group of 594 who were added (presumably unbeknownst to them) to the case, there’s a different issue. Because the union hid the outcome from them (and everyone else) for more than five months, their 50-day window under the Collective Bargaining Agreement for filing a non-injury grievance based on the key finding of the collusion case has expired.
This assumes that the NFL and NFLPA didn’t enter into a tolling agreement that would acknowledge their mutual effort to keep the collusion decision secret and give any other players who choose to proceed a fresh 50 days from whenever the decision sees the light of day. Neither the NFL nor the NFLPA responded to the question of whether a tolling agreement exists.
Our guess is that there’s no such agreement, and that the NFLPA has — in their effort for whatever reason to hide the outcome of the case — hampered if not defeated the effort of any other player who signed a contract before today from using the collusion ruling as the starting point for a grievance of their own.
So what will happen next? It’s up to the players. And it will be up to whether any lawyers out there see the merit in litigation against the NFL and/or the NFLPA and choose to pursue it on behalf of the players.
Until that happens, the NFL and NFLPA will (or should) be sweating out the potential ramifications of the players finally knowing about the thing that was inexplicably hidden from them.
Cardinals tight end Trey McBride is at the Tight End University summit this week, sharing thoughts with other tight ends from around the NFL, and he said a discussion with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was particularly inspiring.
McBride said on ESPN that Kelce talked about his connection with Patrick Mahomes and how a tight end can make himself the quarterback’s best friend. McBride said that he believes he and Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray can develop the same kind of ability to work together that the Chiefs have with Kelce and Mahomes.
“Travis, he would always give us his nuggets on being friendly to the quarterback,” McBride said. “Make sure you and your quarterback are on the same page. He plays with a little freedom. Him and Mahomes have a nice connection and I kind of took that and was like, ‘Why can’t Kyler and I have that same connection?’ I feel like that’s what I’ve tried to do. I’ve tried to have that same relationship and that growth with Kyler and just continue to make plays for him and be that security blanket where if he needs somewhere to go with the ball, he always can throw it to me and that’s what I’m trying to do for him.”
McBride made his first Pro Bowl last season and was rewarded with a four-year, $76 million contract extension. The Cardinals expect Murray and McBride to connect for many years in Arizona. McBride thinks they can have one of the best connections in the NFL.
The Cardinals announced their 2025 training camp schedule.
They will have nine open practices, with the first public practice on Thursday, July 24.
Admission and parking are free, but digital tickets will be required for entry into each practice. Once reserved, the tickets will be accessible via the Cardinals mobile app.
Visit www.azcardinals.com/camptix to reserve tickets.
The Cardinals will host the team’s annual “Red & White Practice” on Saturday, Aug. 2.
The team’s “Back Together Weekend” practice on Sunday, July 27, will be open exclusively for Cardinals’ season ticket members and club seat members. Additional information about tickets for that special practice will be sent in an e-mail to those members.
The Cardinals’ final open practice is Wednesday, Aug. 6.
The 61-page ruling in the landmark collusion grievance features an unprecedented peek behind the NFL’s curtain, in various ways.
Regarding the 2022 negotiations that culminated in a second contract for Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray, the ruling contains a text exchange that directly contradicts System Arbitrator Christopher Droney’s conclusion that the league’s encouragement to collude didn’t take. (Droney, as seen later, disagrees.)
On July 22, 2022 — one day after word of Murray’s non-fully-guaranteed contract surfaced — Chargers owner Dean Spanos texted Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill.
From the document:
Spanos: “Congratulations on signing Murray.”
Bidwill: “Thanks Deno! These QB deals are expensive but we limited the fully guaranteed money and have some pretty good language. Thankfully, we have a QB that’s worth paying.”
Spanos: “Your deal helps us for our QB next year.”
Bidwill: “I think many teams will be happy with it once they have a chance to review. Cleveland really screwed things up, but I was resolved to keep the guaranteed [money] relatively ‘low.’”
As evidence of collusion/coordination among supposedly competing businesses goes, the gun doesn’t get much more smoky than that. If the Chargers and Cardinals (and the other 30 franchises) are truly in competition, why would they coordinate? Why would they care?
Does the board chairman at Coke call the board chairman at Pepsi when Pepsi hires a CEO whose compensation package reverses a potential trend regarding CEO pay? That’s exactly what happened with Spanos and Bidwill.
Droney’s written ruling ignores the obvious import of the coordinator between Spanos and Bidwill. Writes Droney, in the portion of the ruling that systematically dismisses what seems to be important circumstantial evidence of collusion in action, “Neither do texts or emails from owners about contract negotiations show that they were participating in a plan to reduce guarantees. In the text exchange between Mr. Bidwill and Mr. Spanos, Mr. Bidwill recognizes that other teams will be pleased with the fact that the Cardinals kept the guaranteed money in Mr. Murray’s [contract] relatively low, and Mr. Spanos acknowledges that doing so will help the Chargers in upcoming negotiations with their quarterback (Justin Herbert) presumably because they could use Mr. Murray’s contract, rather than Mr. [Deshaun] Watson’s, as a reference point. . . . These communications are more in line with ‘independent response to common stimuli, or mere interdependence unaided by an advance understanding among the parties,’ rather than participation in a collusive agreement.”
Again, do competing businesses in the same industries so casually compare notes about the compensation of key employees? Do they try to do deals that will help the others do better deals?
How was Droney so blind to that?
It should be obvious to anyone with any basic common sense. The NFL “encouraged” (told) them to collude. The communications between Spanos and Bidwill are circumstantial evidence that they did.
And that evidence is now available for anyone and everyone to see.
For the second consecutive year, Justin Reid has beaten Kyler Murray in the finals of a chess tournament for current and former NFL players.
The tournament, known as Blitzchamps, saw Reid top Murray to emerge victorious from an eight-man field that also included Justin Herbert, Mack Hollins, Richard Sherman, Rashawn Slater, AJ Dillon and Harrison Phillips.
Reid, the first two-time champion of the annual event, said he sees the mental approach to chess as similar to the mental approach to football.
“I love [chess]. I’m obsessed with it. I play it almost every day,” Reid said, via TheAthletic.com. “Whenever we’re getting ready to play a game [in the NFL] and you start to get excited because you know that moment is coming where you’re about to go into combat with your brothers, I play one or two games to calm myself down and bring myself back to peace because I play my best when I’m calm and thinking clearly, rather then when I’m jacked up on emotion. So in those two ways, the games are very similar. You get too emotional and you make mistakes, a blunder here and there. If you stay calm under pressure, it ends up translating pretty well. . . . Sometimes you can see what your opponent is about to do before they do it. Both on the chess board and football field so you do a move to counter that before they even get to it.”
The prize for Reid was a $30,000 donation to his foundation, JReid Indeed, which provides opportunities to disadvantaged young people in Houston and Kansas City, the two cities Reid has called home in the NFL, as well as in Baton Rouge, where Reid was born and raised. After four seasons with the Texans and three with the Chiefs, Reid returned to his native Louisiana and signed with the Saints this offseason.
