Andrew Wingard joins the Cardinals, signaling a short-term secondary reset

andrew wingard is set to change teams after agreeing to join the Arizona Cardinals on a one-year deal following his time with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The move lands as Arizona adjusts its safety picture after the departure of Jalen Thompson, and it signals a roster-building approach that leans on short-term additions tied to specific roles and immediate availability.

Andrew Wingard’s one-year deal and the Jaguars-to-Cardinals move

Arizona is signing former Jacksonville Jaguars safety Andrew Wingard on a one-year agreement, a transaction described as pending physicals before anything becomes official. One account of the contract terms characterizes it as a one-year deal with a $3 million base value and $4 million maximum value.

On the Jacksonville side, Wingard’s departure appears inside a broader set of offseason moves that include additions and exits. Jacksonville had been one of three NFL teams, alongside Seattle and Denver, that did not add an outside player during the legal negotiating window. Once the new league year began and free agency officially started, Jacksonville’s tracker-style updates reflected immediate activity, including the note that S Andrew Wingard signed with the Arizona Cardinals on a one-year deal.

Wingard’s latest season workload is central to why this signing reads as a plug-in move rather than a pure projection. He started 16 games for the Jaguars last season, with 84 tackles and nine passes defensed. That stat line also includes one fumble recovered and one interception.

Arizona Cardinals roster signals after Jalen Thompson’s departure

The Cardinals’ decision to add Andrew Wingard is explicitly framed as following the departure of Jalen Thompson. In that context, Wingard arrives with a profile that blends starting experience with special teams usage. Across seven NFL seasons, Wingard has only been a starter for two of them, but one of those starting seasons was last year. In another measure of experience, he has 44 starts in 104 career games.

Arizona’s immediate depth chart expectations also appear relatively defined. Budda Baker and Rabbit Taylor-Demerson are the projected starters, with Kitan Crawford also expected to get some rotation. That structure points to Wingard fitting into a mixed workload: support snaps on defense with a notable special teams role, rather than a guaranteed every-down starting job.

There is also a linking thread between defensive roster change and special teams planning. Arizona is also bringing in 35-year-old long snapper Casey Kreiter on a one-year deal, after a decade of Aaron Brewer. Kreiter previously played for the Giants since 2020 and was playing for new Cardinals special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial, a detail that underscores how Arizona’s early additions connect to coaching familiarity and immediate deployment.

What Andrew Wingard’s usage and grading suggest about Arizona’s trajectory

The Cardinals are not adding Andrew Wingard in a vacuum; the context includes both performance output and role-based evaluation. Wingard’s 2025 grading snapshot shows he was the 77th best safety out of 98 qualified players, with a run grade ranked 12th at the position and a coverage grade in the bottom 15 among safeties. Those splits support a visible direction: Arizona appears to be adding a player whose strengths skew toward the box and run support, while using the existing projected starters to anchor the secondary.

That directional signal is reinforced by how Wingard is described as a potential “box specialist and rotational piece” for a Cardinals secondary that recently lost Jalen Thompson to the Dallas Cowboys. It is also reinforced by the repeated emphasis on his special teams value, with notes that he “has been good at special teams” and “did play heavy special teams snaps” across his seven-year tenure in Jacksonville.

• Based on context data: Wingard’s last season: 16 starts, 84 tackles, nine passes defensed.
• Based on context data: Career: 44 starts in 104 games.
• Based on context data: Role signals: special teams emphasis and rotational framing alongside Budda Baker and Rabbit Taylor-Demerson.

If this usage pattern continues… Arizona’s early roster-building could keep favoring one-year additions that can contribute on special teams and provide role-specific defensive snaps. The presence of both Wingard and Casey Kreiter on one-year deals points in that direction, especially with Kreiter’s prior tie to special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial.

Should the safety rotation settle as projected… with Budda Baker and Rabbit Taylor-Demerson holding the starting roles and Kitan Crawford mixing in, Wingard’s value may concentrate in situational defense and special teams. That would align with the “rotational piece” framing and with the run-versus-coverage grading split that highlights where he may best fit.

The next concrete signal in this story is whether the pending physicals clear and the one-year agreements become official. What the context does not resolve is how Arizona will distribute snaps among Wingard, Crawford, and the projected starters once the rotation becomes more than a projection, and whether coverage responsibilities will shift to accommodate Wingard’s role profile.