TEMPE — The Arizona Cardinals welcomed Josh Sweat back to the field to begin mandatory minicamp, even if he was off to the side. Sweat was dressed but was not a participant during the open portion of practice on Tuesday, the first of two sessions reporters will be able to view — the next coming tomorrow. It's unknown if Sweat will participate in the final day of minicamp before the Cardinals break for the summer ahead of training camp, which isn't yet confirmed but will likely start around mid-to-late July. "Yeah, It was good to see both of those guys. So we'll just take it one day at a time. You guys saw what it was today, and we'll reevaluate," Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur said of Sweat and Jacoby Brissett's presence today. Sweat was not present during voluntary OTAs this spring, which sprung trade rumors around the veteran pass rusher ahead of his second season with the Cardinals. With said trade rumors eventually dispelled around Sweat, why wasn't he practicing with the team? "I'll keep that between us. If Josh could, he would right now. So he's in a good spot. He looks good — looks really good. Had a good conversation with him. So I'm not worried about Josh Sweat at all," LaFleur continued. "It's not injury related. He hasn't been here, so you're not going to throw somebody [into the mix right away]. When guys get here in phase one on day one, we don't practice. So why am I going to do that to another guy? You know that seems negligent on my part."Sweat also was not practicing with Arizona during OTAs last offseason, though video footage from last season shows he was doing some sort of on-field work with a helmet on. Today, he was simply in a jersey and did not do anything during the open portion of practice. "There's no situation," LaFleur said. "The situation is he hasn't practiced. I'm not going to put a guy out on the field that hasn't been out there to prep, that's what phase one and phase two are for, to get guys ready for phase three. Josh has always done this. Josh has always had his own program, and he's not the first guy on any team I've been a part of that's been a part of that in San Francisco, LA, we've always had guys that were kind of like that, and that's okay. "The one thing that you know about Josh is when he's not in this building, he's working, and I think that shows when he gets out there on the field. Again, I'll keep that with us. Phase one, phase two, there's a lot of lead up time to get out there in the practice. I don't care if you're a punter, a water boy or whatnot. If you haven't been playing football, you want to make sure you're doing the right part by those guys."Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow